Shadow's Story
by EnderFriend284
Summary: Shadow and his brothers Steve, Notch and Herobrine always wanted to create their own realm, but will their dreams of having a perfect realm be destroyed by a malicious lord of chaos? Rated T because I am paranoid.
1. Creation of the Overworld

**A/N: Hey, Ender here, and welcome to my first fanfiction. I would like to thank Kitwarrior24 for beta reading this for me. The first few chapters of this will be a flashback to what happened before the main events of the story. I hope you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer- I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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My life has been full of excitement and exploration before the betrayal.

My brothers and I existed in the formless world of the gods. We were discussing amongst ourselves what we should use our powers to accomplish, when a dark presence came into our area of existence. He was a lord of chaos, but would not reveal to us his name, for we could then use it to bind him to our will. One of the twin gods, Notch, told the chaos lord to be gone from our presence, or we would force him to do so. His twin, Herobrine, had no problems with this command, for he knew much of the lords of chaos, and knew that they rarely gave up without a display of their power and might to the ones who they have shown themselves to. He was the most warlike of our group, and likely to pick a fight, even if there was little need for such a drastic show of force, for few can survive the attack of four gods. The youngest of us, our brother Steve, agreed with Notch that a fight should be avoided, but if the lord of chaos did not leave, he would have no objection to to trading spells with him across the spectral plane.

I had never told my brothers, but many star cycles before they were formed of void's mist and star's glow, I had encountered a chaos lord while I was roaming the dimensional planes, looking for those who would help me build a realm over which we could govern and bring knowledge to. I barely escaped from being sealed in the dark void fog by the lord of chaos. As I looked at the pulsating mass of energy that was the chaos lord before us, for there are no true shapes in the spectral plane, I wondered if the two lords that I had now met knew of each other, or perhaps were one and the same. I was woken from my innermost thoughts when I sensed him preparing a spell which would allow him to gaze into our minds and discover what secrets we had been keeping from him. Notch sensed this as well, and took it to mean that this chaos lord would not leave voluntarily. A fight would be the only way to get him to leave us in peace. Herobrine cast the first spell when the lord of chaos was about to cast his mind-claim spell and take control of Steve. I then sensed a spell that I had heard of in legend. One which only the supreme lord of the chaos realm had the power and will to use. The last thought that I had as I lost consciousness was that we had no idea what we were really dealing with.

When I awoke, I realized that I could not see or sense my brothers around me. I soon realized that the reason that I could not sense them was that they were not around to be sensed. After a few minutes of searching, I caught sight of them. The fact that I could not sense them from such a close range made me realize that the chaos lord's last spell had been successful. He had used the forbidden spell giga energy steal to drain almost all of our energy into himself. I quickly traveled to where my brothers still slept peacefully. I hastily woke them from their restful slumber, and told them of the things that I had discovered during our encounter with the despicable lord of chaos who had taken from us so much of our most useful tool.

Steve then said "We should now build a dimension of our own where we now are, so that we may regain our strength for when this dark one returns, as he surely will, for he has determined us to be such pathetic opponents."

"This seems to be a good idea" said Notch, "But how shall we build the amazing dimension that we have always dreamed of, when we have so little magic energy?"

"We will have to settle with what little we can make with the energy we have now" I said "Later, when we have regained our strength, we can modify it to be the perfect world that we all desire.

So we went to work, and began building a world of our own. A spell was cast, and soon a flat, nondescript gray plane stretched out in what seemed to be an endless amount in every direction. Notch and Steve then made a thin layer of a powdery brown substance that covered the gray. I then spoke the lost words, which when spoken to something, bring it to life. Abruptly, the brown became flecked with green, and soon there was the tips of fine green vegetation poking up from the substance.

It was then that we began to notice something a little odd about this world. In most of the worlds that we had ever visited, the vegetation had been wild and untamed. In our world however, each tuft was confined to the size of a single square. Steve reached down towards it, and with a tendril of energy, he broke a small piece off of one of the tufts. When he pulled the piece away, the whole tuft disappeared in a shower of particles.

"This does not seem like it should happen when you break this...thing" said Notch with a confused look. "what is it called anyway?"

"It is called grass" said Steve, "The brown stuff is called dirt, and the gray material is stone"

"How can you possibly know that?" demanded Herobrine. "Are you just making the names up off the top of your head to troll us?"

"I really don't know" said Steve. "It just feels so right to call them that"

"Then when our powers have recovered, we shall each make our own realm" said Notch, "And you shall have this realm as your own since you feel so strongly connected to it."

A part of me wanted to argue with him and ask who had put him in charge. However, I knew that this was a good idea, so why not give the credit that he deserved for it. I decided that later I would just have to talk to him about why he thought he should be in charge.

"May we now assume forms that can walk this land?" asked Herobrine. "For I want to become accustomed to the feel of where I shall be fighting if that chaos lord has any ideas about returning."

"You shall not fight anyone unless there is reason to" said Notch in a commanding voice.

"It would be nice to have a defined form so that we may more easily tend to this world" said Steve.

"Yes, let us do so now" I said

With that statement, I began to change my form to one that was better suited to this world.

When we had all finished changing, I looked at the others. We all had become men of medium height with brown hair. We wore cyan t-shirts and blue pants.

"This will do for now" I said. "We can change our forms later to to ones that fit our personalities more closely."

"First we must choose one of our number to be in charge" said Notch. "I say that person should be me. Does anyone object to this?"

Steve, Herobrine and I looked at each other in shock, completely at a loss for words. Unfortunately, Notch took this silence to mean that we had no objections to his decree.

"Then it's settled" he said. "I will be in charge of our group. I am so very honored that that you would give me this position without a bit of a fuss."

It turns out that we should have made a huge deal out of his self appointment, and not have made him leader, but we would not know that for quite a long time.

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**A/N: So what did you think? Please leave a review and comment on how it was. Your feedback motivates me to write more. See you all next chapter.**


	2. Light, Water and Failure

**A/N: Hey Ender here. I would like to thank Lunaris14 for reviewing, I hope that you continue to enjoy the story. Chapter two is finally finished, so here it is. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft  
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After Notch had made his declaration, I called Herobrine and Steve over to me. "did you have any idea that he was going to do this guys?" I asked them.

"He had mentioned something about it" said Herobrine, "But I thought that he was kidding. I mean if anyone was going to be supreme leader here, I would think it would be you shadow.

"Well right now we need to finish building our world." I said, "Once that is done, we can deal with Notch." With that, we went back to where Notch was.

"Where did you guys go?" asked Notch "were you talking about something that you did not want me to to hear? Oh, oh, oh, were you planning my surprise party for my birthday? You must have been! You guys are the best!"

"No Notch, we were not planing your surprise party. What would make you think that anyway? It does not matter, lets just continue building this world."

"Fine" said Notch, "but do not expect me to give you guys surprise parties if you do not give me one." Sighing at Notch's antics, we went back to work building our realm.

Notch now took a bundle of the tall grass, and stuck it upright into the ground. He then muttered a spell, and it transformed and grew into a seven block high central post with spongy green blocks clustered around the top. Steve identified the blocks in the center as wood, and the spongy blocks as leaves. When they grew together, they were called trees. Herobrine began punching one of the leaf blocks as he asked "what are the purpose of these leaves?" Suddenly the leaf that he was punching disappeared, and dropped what looked like a miniature tree that bobbed up and down, seemingly of his own accord.

"What is that?" asked Herobrine "does it do something cool?" Steve went over to the thing, and as soon as he got within a few blocks of it, it flew into his hand. "Its a sapling" he said "if you plant it in dirt and wait, then it will grow into a tree."

"When can we start making the cool stuff?" asked Herobrine "I'm tired of all this talk about grass and trees"

"You can start working on that if you want" said Notch.

We are almost done with this anyway." said Steve "Start working on what you want to do, and we will be there in a little while."

"Just try not to destroy anything while you are working." said Notch as Herobrine sprinted off to begin work on his project. A look of concentration spread across Notch's face, and he began to chant the words to a long and complicated spell. After about five minutes, he finally came to the end of the spell, and a small glowing sphere of bright energy appeared in front of him. He spoke one of the words of magic, which caused a dimmer copy of the sphere to appear beside the first. He then cast them both into the sky exactly opposite of each other, so that neither one could be completely in the sky at the same time as the other. These were the sun and moon, and they would provide the light required for life to be sustained in our realm. "Now there is only one more thing that we need to create before this world will be able to sustain large amounts of plant and animal life for extended amounts of time." said Steve, "We need to create water."

"What does it do for life exactly in this world?" I asked, "It seems to do something different in every world that we visit."

"I guess we will just have to find out when we make it." said Steve.

"More surprises, great" said Notch.

"Don't you like surprises Notch" asked Steve, "Earlier you were asking for a surprise party. I suppose if you ask for it, then the party is not really a surprise, so you don't have to be surprised by it."

"I just like to be prepared for things." said Notch "You never know when something might go wrong with what you are doing, and it is hard enough to just be prepared for what happens in regular life without adding more surprises to it."

"Enough with your preparation talk" I said, "We both know that what you say is true, but who cares? Life would not be any fun in everyone's life was exactly the same, and I think life would be even harder if we knew about everything that was going to happen ahead of time. Mainly because if something bad was going to happen, we would know about it, which would make us miserable and scared until it happened."

"I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation," said Steve, "But we should probably finish up here and go and find Herobrine before he gets himself into too much trouble."

"How do we create water then?" asked Notch, glaring at me as if it was all my fault that we were taking so long to do this.

"Its not too hard." said Steve, "all you have to do is to take eight saplings and put them around a two by two block space on the ground. Then you cast a sun spell on the center blocks, and after a short time, the center blocks will turn into water."

"Lets do it!" I said. I began punching the ground until four blocks had been destroyed in a two by two square. Then Steve took out eight saplings, and placed them around the space that I had dug out, leaving the corners empty. Notch then summoned a sphere of sun in the center. When he did so, a blinding flash of light obscured the setup. When the light had gone and our eyes had readjusted to the now significantly dimmer light, we looked at what we had made. The water sat there, unmoving.

"How does it work?" asked Notch, breaking one of the blocks surrounding the small pool. The water flower into the space where the block had been before.

"You can do this" said Steve, picking up one of the blocks of water, and holding it in his hands. As he did so, another filled its place.

"That's interesting" said Notch.

"Did you know that it would do that?" I asked him.

"No" said Steve, "But you never know exactly what is going to happen when you make new things. Thats what makes it so much fun." Notch tried to pick up one of the blocks, and failed.

"How are you doing that anyway?" he asked Steve. "Are you using a spell or something?"

"No" said Steve, "I'm not doing anything special at all."

"Let me try" I said. "Maybe you are just a fail Notch"

"No Shadow I am not a fail" said Notch, "You go ahead and try. I bet you will not be able to do it either."

"Fine" I said. I reached into the pool and grabbed a block of water. It clung to my hand and I laughed. "Take that Notch, I can do it and you cant." As I pulled my hand out of the pool, the water flowed back into a block shape and looked as if nothing about it had changed.

"Looks like you spoke too soon" said Notch.

"Why am I the only one who can do this?" asked Steve.

"I don't know" said Notch, "But it proves what I said earlier. This dimension is really meant for you. Anyway, since we finished with, we better go find Herobrine before he causes any trouble."

"Good point" I said. With that, we started going towards the area where Herobrine had run off to.

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**A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review to tell me how you liked it and what I can do better next time. See you all next chapter.**


	3. Why Notch Hates Lava

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I have decided that since the background flashback that I talked about in the first chapter is taking so many chapters to write, it will be its own story, and the sequel will be the continuation after that. Thanks to Lunaris14 and Kitwarrior24 for reviewing. I do not need any OC's right now, but I will notify you all if I do. This chapter is a little longer than the others, and I hope you enjoy it. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

When we reached the place where Herobrine had started working, we stood there staring in shock. Herobrine had planted a few more trees, but that's not what made us stare. The reason that we could not take our eyes off of the scene before us was that there was glowing, orange stuff oozing all over the landscape. Notch reached his finger towards one of the flows. Just before he was about to touch it, Steve said "You might not want to do that"

"Why not?" asked Notch "are you going to stop me?"

"No" said Steve, "But if you want to continue having all your fingers you will listen. That stuff will burn your finger off, and that would not feel nice."

"How do you know that." asked Notch. "Did you try it or do you just feel it?"

"Neither" said Steve "Some of it got near a tree over there, and it is burning down. If you really want to do it though, how am I going to stop you?"

"Maybe you are right" said Notch. He hastily moved his hand away from the stuff.

"Did Herobrine make this stuff?" I asked.

"Yes I did" said a voice coming from a deep flow of the orange ooze. "Isn't it great! It is called lava and it is warm and glowy, and you can swim in it!" To emphasize his last point, he swam up out of the lava that he was submerged in.

"Ha you were wrong Steve" said Notch. He stuck the top of his finger into the lava. His eyes opened wide and he immediately pulled his finger back out of the lava. He then began waving it around and blowing on it. Rather than lessening the pain, which was what these actions had been intended to do, they caused his finger to burst into flames. These flames quickly spread to the rest of him, causing him to jump around screaming.

"Do you need any help?" asked Steve, doing his best to keep himself from bursting out laughing, and failing miserably.

"No, I have got everything under control." said Notch.

"You sure?" asked Steve, a concerned expression on his face.

"Just admit it if you need help" said Herobrine "Not everyone can have the same amazing powers as me. Anyway you are never going to get anything done if you light everything you get near on fire."

"Fine" said Notch. "This does not mean that I owe you or anything though. I would do it myself, but Herobrine here does not think that I can do it fast enough for his taste."

"I don not do nice things so that people will owe me" said Steve, looking hurt. "I do them because it is the right thing to do" After he finished speaking, he took the mass of water that he was carrying and dumped it over Notch's head.

"Thanks I guess" said Notch as he shook off droplets of water that had clung to him.

As I watched this scene, I was slightly surprised at the way that Notch had responded to Steve's offer. The only one who could usually make him so paranoid was Herobrine, and that was mostly because he was always being pranked by him. I had never seen him talk that way to Steve though, It seemed like his self-appointment as leader was getting to him, and he was seeing us not as family, but as enemies who were always trying to take his position away from him. I put these thoughts behind me temporarily, and gave my attention to the fact that Herobrine had put more lava all over the ground.

"So Herobrine" I asked "What did you think that this lava could be used for?"

"I did not really think about it too much" said Herobrine. "I did have an idea that we could make some caves down in the stone layer since there is nothing down there right now. Then we could use the lava to light it up down there."

"We could also put different types of resources down there" said Steve.

"Since you two had the ideas about what you would like to do maybe you could work together on it." I suggested, seeing an opportunity to be alone with Notch so that I could talk to him about why he had been doing such strange things lately.

"What would we be doing then?" asked Notch "I do not want to just be doing busy work while they do all of the important stuff. After all, as leader of our group I need to be in the middle of the action so that I can know what is going on at all times."

"We can make creatures" I said to Notch. "Does that sound reasonable to you?"

"I guess so" he said.

We waved at Steve and Herobrine as they went their separate way. As they left, Steve glanced over his shoulder and mouthed "Thank you" to me. Apparently I was not the only one who had noticed Notch's strange behavior. I figured that the sooner that I got to the bottom of what was going on with Notch, the better it would be for our relationship as a unified group.

"So what type of creatures do you want to create" I asked Notch. "Steve suggested some if you do not have any specific ideas."

"So Steve is trying to tell us what to do" grumbled Notch. "I am the leader here, I should be making the decisions here. You do not seem to be one who respects my authority either. You were assigning tasks to everyone like you were their leader. Are you trying to overthrow me Shadow?"

I stared at Notch, wondering what was going on in his head. I did not know what could make someone who had a personality as strong as Notch did act in a way that seemed so contrary to his nature. Was Notch like this all along? Was he really just good at hiding his true personality, and lost some control over it when he was faced with the strain of leadership. A more sinister thought crossed my mind soon after. Perhaps we had not escaped from the lord of chaos with only the loss of energy after all. Maybe the chaos lord had changed Notch with a spell or twisted his mind so good and evil were switched and no one could be trusted. Notch decided to take my silence as a sign that his last question held some truth. "So you are trying to take my power" he said "I knew it. There is no one that I can trust. Not even the ones who I thought would never betray me."

"Just because I do not immediately answer your question does not mean that the answer is an automatic yes" I said "We never officially made you a leader of anything. You nominated yourself, then declared yourself the winner before we could do anything about it. Why have you been acting so strangely lately? Are you hiding something from us?"

"You mind your own business and leave me alone. I will tell you what I choose when the time is right. Poking your nose where it is not wanted will only make me angry. You do not want to see me angry." With these last words, Notch went off to do who knows what, and left me standing there in shock, wondering exactly what had just happened. I hoped that we would be able to rescue Notch from whatever evil had a hold on him. I could do nothing until the others returned from their task, so I set myself to the task of creating a few creatures so that it would not seem like I had spent the whole day sitting in the sun doing nothing.

When the others got back, I showed them the creatures that I had made. There were feathery chickens, woolly sheep, cows and pigs. When Herobrine saw them, he decided that he needed to make some of them at least a little annoying if he could not make them hostile. So he caused cows to make obnoxious mooing sounds, and gave the others sounds that would become annoying if many of one type of mob were present. While he was doing so, Steve asked me "Where is Notch? He was supposed to be helping you out with this."

"We got into an argument and he went off in a huff." I said. "We get more stuff done when he is not around to question everything anyway. If he is not back by the time we finish whatever we choose to do, then we will go looking for him."

"Ok" said Steve reluctantly. "I do not like the idea of him being out there alone, but he does need some time to himself. I have never seen him act the way that he did earlier. The stress of this must be getting to him."

"Um guys" said Herobrine "We may have a bit of a problem."

We turned towards where he was working with the creatures and gasped at what we saw.

**A/N:So how did you guys like this? Please review telling me what I can do better. The next chapter may be a little late next week if I am busy. See you all next chapter.**


	4. Creeper Time

**A/N: Hey Ender here. I would like to thank Lunaris14 and Guest Kitty Cat for reviewing this week. Your reviews encourage me to keep writing. I should have at least the first part of my valentines day two-shot out by the end of the week so you can look for that if you would like.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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The sight before us was a chaotic one. Herobrine was still surrounded by many creatures, or mobs, as Steve called them. The creatures were now different than they had been been before. Many of them looked like they had turned into zombie versions of themselves. As I watched, the flesh on one of the zombies disappeared, and all that was left was a skeletal chicken.

"What happened" asked Steve. "Before they were nice creatures. Now they are scary." A zombie sheep then approached Steve, which caused him to scream shrilly. Quickly he climbed up the nearest tree and sat there, shaking. Occasionally he peeked over the edge of one of the leaf blocks to make sure that none of the creatures were trying to get him, but other that that, none of him was to be seen.

"So what happened" I asked him.

"I do not know" said Herobrine. "I was just giving them different sounds when they started changing like this." All of a sudden I heard a loud hissing noise coming from behind Herobrine

"Are you sure that was all you were doing?" I asked Herobrine skeptically.

"There definitely is something weird going on here" said Steve. "There is what looks like a walking pile of leaves behind him."

"Fine" said Herobrine "Maybe I was doing more than that. But I felt left out and wanted to be able to make a creature too."

"It does not look like it worked too well." said Steve.

"What are you talking about." asked Herobrine. "It does exactly what I wanted it to do. It can hide because it looks like a bush, it is really sneaky, and it can explode. I call it a creeper."

"So what you are saying is that you made an exploding leaf pile." said Steve, obviously not impressed with his claim.

"Well it can also do this" said Herobrine with a grin. He whispered a few words to the creeper, and it walked over to the low hanging leaves of the tree that Steve had used to climb up. The second that he turned away to tell Herobrine that his creature was not doing anything, he heard a loud hissing sound coming from right behind him. Hastily he jumped out of the tree. He was just in time to avoid being blown up. Only a few seconds after he had extracted himself from the tree, the creeper exploded, sending leaves and smoke throughout the sky. When the smoke had cleared, we saw that the entire top half of the tree had been destroyed, and several saplings bobbed slowly up and down in the wreckage.

"Wow" was all that I could say to this display. I had always known that Herobrine enjoyed destroying thing, but I had never thought that he had the skills necessary to create a creature that was so efficient in destruction.

"What happens after it explodes" asked Steve. "Is it gone forever?"

"As far as I know it is" said Herobrine. A loud hissing noise came from the area behind Steve. After a sudden explosion, he was thrown forward straight into Herobrine, knocking them both to the ground. "I guess I was wrong" said Herobrine with a grin.

"How do you know that it was the same one that just exploded?" asked Steve.

"I know because I only made one so far" said Herobrine.

"That is a very good reason" I said as I helped them up from where they were lying on the ground. "So what did you guys get done"

"Well" said Steve, "We dug some caves with magic first. Then Herobrine complained about how long it was taking, so we put a spel1 onto the ground that would automatically dig random caves throughout the ground."

"It was taking ages." said Herobrine. "digging it manually would have almost have been faster."

"Next we made some different types of ores that we put randomly throughout the ground." said Steve. "I have an idea for a system of creating tools and other stuff that I think some of the materials will be useful for."

"I have an idea for an ore of my own" I said. "what types do you have already have?"

"We made coal, iron, gold, lapis, and diamond" said Herobrine.

"What is your idea?" asked Steve.

"My idea is for an ore that creates current and can be used to create circuits." I said.

"Like that stuff we saw in Lectrisen?" asked Steve.

"Yes" I said.

"I can work with you on that later" said Steve. "More importantly right now, we need to go and find Notch."

"Do we have to" asked Herobrine. Steve and I glared at him. "I was only joking" he said hastily.

"It probably is a good idea to go and find him" I said. "It will be dark soon and we do not the creeper to find him"

"Um ya about creepers." said Herobrine. "I forgot to tell you one very important thing about them. When it gets dark..." He was interrupted by the last streak of daylight disappearing from the sky and the world being plunged into darkness. All at once a hissing noise could be heard. Then it seemed like many creatures were hissing at once. "Ya that" said Herobrine "They replicate at night. Probably should have mentioned that."

"No really" said Steve "Run!" Herobrine and I started running as the creepers began to chase Steve, hoping that we would be fast enough to keep up with the frightened Steve.

"Why do they always chase me?" asked Steve. "I have never done anything to them."

"They can tell that you are scared of them" said Herobrine. "They want to find out why."

"Well I am scared because they explode" said Steve. "Now make them leave me alone"

"I can not. Also where are we going?" asked Herobrine.

"I do not know" said Steve.

"This is the way that Notch ran" I said. "Maybe we will find him if we do this way."

After many minutes of running, we saw a glow in the distance. When we got closer, we saw that it was coming from a rectangular gateway that was five blocks tall and four blocks wide. The innermost blocks were made up of a rippling blue goo. It almost looked like water, except that it was swirling instead of flowing. The outer blocks of the portal were unlike any block that I had ever seen before. They glowed with a bright light, and appeared to have many different facets,

"That looks like a teleport gate" said Steve. "It will take yo u to whichever realm that it is linked to in a dimension. Our dimension only has one realm though, so I do not know where this one would take us."

"If this is a teleport gate, then what does a portal look like?" asked Herobrine.

"They are the same thing Herobrine" said Steve with a tone in his voice that told me they had had a similar conversation before, and as usual, Herobrine had not listened to a word of it.

"We should go into it" said Herobrine "Maybe there will be food where it takes us."

"I really do not want to go in there." I said, "However, it might help us to find out where Notch is."

"Also the creepers are almost here" said Herobrine. Steve glanced behind himself with a terrified look in his eyes, as if he expected the creepers to be directly behind him.

"I really do not care where it goes anymore" he said "I will go through it to be able to get away from those creepers. Nothing could be worse than them."

"Not even Notch when he is angry?" I asked Steve with a grin.

"Ok almost nothing" said Steve.

"You know if we go through there and the portal was made by Notch and he does not want us there, he will be pretty mad" said Herobrine. "So you may end up deciding between those two things Steve."

"I do not care" said Steve. "The creepers are a certainty and angry Notch is only a possibility."

"I guess we are going through the portal then" I said. As the creepers appeared as a thin line on the horizon, we all stepped into the portal and waited for it to transport us into another world.

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**A/N: I hope that you all liked this latest chapter. If you did, consider leaving a review. Even if you did not like it you can review about what I could do better next time. See you all next chapter.**


	5. Enter the Aether

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Lunaris14 and 0spore13 for reviewing. Reviews help me to know that what I write is enjoyed and also motivate me to write more.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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After the swirling blue mist of the portal had cleared from our eyes, we looked around the new world we found ourselves in.

"Move out of the way, I want to see" said Herobrine, shoving against us.

"Stop right now." said Steve in an urgent tone. "If you have not noticed, we are quite close to an edge, and I would prefer not to fall to my death." This statement caused me to look at my surroundings more closely in order to find out how it would be possible to fall to one's death. I realized that we were on a floating island with no visible surface to stop us from falling forever. Several other islands were visible from our location, so it seemed that an archipelago of islands had been put into the sky. We were also dangerously close to the edge of the island that we had found ourselves on, and if Herobrine kept jostling us, we would all fall off of the island.

"What are you talking about?" asked Herobrine "You guys can not die from falling, we can fly. Anyway, we are gods, so why would we die?"

"We can fly?" I asked, my confusion mirrored by Steve as we looked at each other.

"Well duh." said Herobrine "I would not be telling you that if it was not true now would I."

"No, you would never trick us like that." said Steve, rolling his eyes at me as he spoke.

"How would we use this art of flying which we apparently have?" I asked.

"You just will yourself into the air" said Herobrine "And pretty soon you are flying like you have been doing it forever."

"How in the world did you figure that out" asked Steve.

"Well" said Herobrine "You were working on digging caves with magic, and I got really bored, so I was thinking about random things. Then I looked down after a while of thinking and noticed that I was floating. After a while I figured out that focusing on flying and different aspects of the sky had allowed me to unlock the power of flight."

"So you were just thinking all about random things while I was doing all of the work." said Steve "That is typical"

"Are you saying that I am a slacker?" asked Herobrine with a furious expression on his face.

"I guess I am" said Steve, not realizing how angry he had already made Herobrine. Without giving any warning, Herobrine charged at Steve, shoving him hard and sending him teetering towards the edge of the platform. Steve balanced on the edge of the island platform for a moment. Then a strong gust of wind made him loose his balance, causing him to plummet off of the platform.

"What did you do Herobrine" I yelled

"Um, I may have accidentally pushed Steve off of the island." said Herobrine "But it was an accident I swear."

"I do not care that you swear that it was an accident" I said angrily "Go get him before he falls to his death."

"I already told you, we can not die because we are gods" said Herobrine

"Well what if there is void down there?" I asked "Being a god will not stop him from being trapped there."

"Good point" said Herobrine. He closed his eyes for a moment, then he began to slowly rise off the ground.

"You have to show me how to do that later" I said "Now go and save Steve."

Before Herobrine had time to fly after Steve, we saw a brilliant streak of light shoot past us, traveling down towards where Steve had been falling.

"What was that?" asked Herobrine

"I do not know" I said "Why don't you go and find out?" Before he could fly down and see what or who had flown by, a figure flew up carrying Steve. Steve had passed out from falling so far without anything to slow his fall.

"Who are you?" asked Herobrine "Also thanks for saving our brother here. I definitely was not the reason that he was falling out of the world."

"Herobrine you are talking to Notch." I said "If you had tried to sense who it was you would have known that."

"Then why does he look different?" asked Herobrine

"I look different because I can shape shift Herobrine." said Notch. Notch's new form was a few inches taller than his last, with tousled blond hair and fair skin.

"Nice choice in fashion." snickered Herobrine as he noticed that Notch was wearing golden yellow robes. "Are those to match your sunny personality?"

"Be quiet Herobrine." said Notch coldly "This is my realm. I do not have to deal with your trickery and wisecracks. Now if you do not mind, I will be going now." With this, he turned to leave. This action revealed his back and what was on his back.

"Are those butterfly wings?" asked Herobrine, not even bothering to hide his amusement. "You really need to have better taste in shape shifting forms."

"What I choose to make my form look like is entirely my business. Now get out of my realm before I forcibly make you do so."

"Calm down Notch" I said "You know he teases you because he is your brother and wants attention."

"Fine you can stay for now." said Notch in a resigned tone. "But I have the power to kick you out whenever I like. Keep that in mind when you are considering teasing or mocking me or my realm in any way."

"Ok I get it." said Herobrine "I will be good. Sheesh, all you had to do was ask."

"So why did you make this realm?" I asked Notch "We were doing fine working on the other one."

"Well as ruler I thought that I deserved my own realm." said Notch

"So you made one all on your own so that you could make it however you like" said Herobrine "I respect that."

"This realm is called the Aether." said Notch.

"Why is it all islands?" I asked. "Also, why does the sun never seem to get any lower in the sky?"

"The sun never gets any lower because it is never night here. The Aether is the realm of light." said Notch "It is all islands because a realm of light should be open and free, with room for the breeze to roam. I wondered if this was the truth. When I looked at Notch's realm, I did not see a world of freedom and light. Instead I saw a world that had been created by someone with a broken spirit which had led to fragmented terrain. My suspicions about Notch being controlled by a chaos power had been confirmed earlier when Notch had flown down to catch Steve. When I had looked into the spirit plane to see who was there, I had seen a dark haze surrounding my brother. This showed that, as I had feared, his actions were being controlled by the chaos lord who had attacked us. He must have been more strongly affected than I had thought by this though. I had not thought that the lord of chaos would have been able to dominate Notch so easily. Maybe Notch had been an easy target for the chaos lord's plan to take one of us over because secretly Notch had wanted to rule over us, but he did not have the power to take on all three of us at the same time. This would have made him vulnerable to the chaos lord, who must have tempted him with the power that would allow him to rule us.

Steve began to stir in Notch's arms, so he placed him on a raised block of dirt.

"Make sure he does not fall off the edge again when he wakes up." Notch told Herobrine "I do not want to have to fly after him again."

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**A/N: Thanks for reading, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Consider leaving a review, it helps me know what people like about this story. See you all next chapter. **


	6. Rise of the Valkyrie

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. Here is the new chapter of the story. I hope that you all enjoy it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft.**

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A few minutes later, Steve finally awoke. "Ugh, what happened to me?" asked Steve.

"Herobrine pushed you off the island." I said "Then Notch showed up and saved you."

"Thank you Notch" said Steve, going over to give his older brother a hug.

Notch looked surprised at this action. I figured that he was confused because the chaos lord would be telling him we were his enemies, yet here he was being treated as a friend. At last he said "It was no problem Steve, I know that you would do the same for me."

"I hope that I would be brave enough to." said Steve, leaning on a dirt block.

I then came up with an idea that would allow me to hopefully find out what was happening to Notch. However, if Notch found out that I had done it, then I would probably be put into the void. "How about we make you a creature in your realm, and you make one in ours." I said

"Sure" said Notch "Just do not make anything stupid."

"We will not" I said "Now go through that portal. I want the creatures to be a surprise."

After Notch had left, Steve asked "Do you have an idea of a creature to make? I can not think of any because I am too nervous."

"What are you nervous about?" asked Herobrine

"Hmm I do not know" said Steve sarcastically "Maybe I am afraid I will be pushed off the island again!"

"I said I was sorry for that." said Herobrine "So what kind of creature are we going to make?"

"It is going to have to be able to fly or teleport" said Steve "There is not exactly an abundance of land around here."

"I know" I said "I was thinking that since this is a realm of light, then we should make creatures of the angel kind."

"Sounds good to me" said Steve. He used a spell to condense a pillar of air into a solid form. "Notch will have to give it the powers of light when we are done." I said.

"What should I do then?" asked Herobrine.

"Go see if you can find some ore." said Steve "Notch probably made some for this realm. I can use them to make tools for this species."

"Ok" said Herobrine, flying off to look for ores.

"Can you help me with this Shadow?" asked Steve "I can not concentrate hard enough to male the air form the proper shape."

"Sure" I said, linking my powers to his in order to help him. The air assumed a humanoid shape with angel wings. Over the bare skin, links of chain armor and bright robes became visible. A crown formed on the head of the creature. Finally after many minutes of concentration, the figure finally appeared to be solid. I went over to it, placed my palm against its chest, and whispered some of the words of life. A wave of color spread out from where I had touched. The wave engulfed the entire creature. Then its eyes blinked once and remained open.

"Rise Valkyrie" I said "by what name are you called?"

The Valkyrie slowly flapped its wings a few times to reorient itself in the air, then said "I am Tyra"

"Well Tyra" I said "You are now the leader of Valkyrie kind."

Later, after Steve and I had created more Valkyrie, Herobrine finally came back from looking for ore.

"I found some ore." he said, pulling out many blocks of a purplish ore, and a few blocks of a pinkish ore. "They were in a pile with other things that belong to Notch though, so I am thinking I should go and put them back."

"Good call" said Steve "We do not want Notch to get mad again. We can ask him what they are later, and what they can be used for." As they talked, I motioned for Tyra to move a little way away from them so that we could talk.

"This is my other brother's realm" I said "When he gets back, he will give you and your people the power of light so that you can better help him in this realm. I only ask one thing of you. If you notice anything strange about him, tell me right away. He can be a bit weird sometimes." Tyra said nothing to my request, only looked me over once and went over to where the other Valkyries where talking.

A few minutes later, Herobrine came back from where he had gone to return Notch's ores after talking to Steve. "I am really bored" he said "all I have been allowed to do all day is fly back and forth to get and return ore. Can we do something more interesting now?"

"We could go and see how far Notch has gotten with the creation of his creature species." suggested Steve.

"Sounds like a good idea" I said. We all started walking back towards the portal, for we had moved closer to the center of the island while we worked so that there was no chance of someone accidentally falling off of the island and out of the world.

Steve said "I hope that it is day when we get back to the other realm. Then maybe the creepers will have gone."

"I do not think that the creepers will be there when you go through the portal" said Herobrine as he caught sight of the portal.

"How do you know Herobrine?" asked Steve.

"Well" said Herobrine, "Mainly it is because all of the creepers are now on this side of the portal."

"What!" said Steve. "Are you sure?" he asked nervously "I do not want to have to deal with them again. Can you make them go away? Please?"

"I will try" said Herobrine "It would probably be better if there were not creepers walking all over Notch's realm when he got back anyway." Herobrine strode over to where a large group of creepers was now visible.

"I hope that he can make them go back into the other realm and leave me alone" Steve said "Until then, I am going to stay over here." He rushed over to the nearest tree and climbed up it as fast as he could.

"Why are you always climbing trees when you are scared?" I asked him.

"I like trees." said Steve "Is there anything wrong with that?"

I was about to answer when Herobrine came back from talking to the creepers. "Good news" he said, "They have agreed to go back to their realm. They also said that they will leave you alone for a while Steve. I know creepers though, and with their definition of a while, you will probably have about five minutes without creepers after you go through the portal."

"Whatever" said Steve "I would not mind even that much time without creepers. Anyway, I really want to see what Notch has made while we have been here."

"I wonder what he made" said Herobrine "And if I will be able to come up with a reason to laugh at it."

"You probably will be able to" I said "You can usually find a reason to laugh at anything."

"Lets do this then" said Steve, stepping through the portal. Herobrine and I then followed him through the portal. When we got through the portal, we saw some movement close to the trees that we had planted.

"Notch must be over there" I said.

"Either that or it is the creepers" said Herobrine.  
"You had to bring up the creepers again didn't you" said Steve.

"Chill Steve, if the creepers come, we can deal with them." I said "Now lets go over and see if that is Notch."

"And if it is he can tell us what he made." said Herobrine "I hope it is something interesting. I am getting bored again."

"Hurry Shadow!" said Steve in a panicked voice "We have to get Herobrine to Notch. Otherwise he is going to get bored and you know what happens when he gets bored."

"Ya I know Steve." I said "Off we go to find Notch."

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**A/N:Please consider leaving a review for the story. They help me to know what I am doing right and what I should change about my writing. See you all next chapter.**


	7. Crafting and Creatures

**A/N:Hey, Ender here. I have revised the summary of the story so that it will hopefully represent this story better. This chapter is my longest one yet. We are finally getting to the part of the story with more action, so I hope you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft **

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We headed off to where we had seen the movement. When we got there, we were about to get a good look at what Notch had made, when Notch jumped up in front of us.

"You can not go over there" said Notch "I am not quite done yet."

"Ok" said Steve "We will wait here for you to finish."

This answer did not seem to please Notch, who kept glancing over his shoulder, as if to make sure that something was not sneaking up on him. "Why don't you go and do something else." he said "I want this to be a surprise for all of you, so you have to wait until I am completely finished."

"I guess we could work on something else for a while." I said.

"We could work on my crafting idea." suggested Steve.

"Would I be left out again?" asked Herobrine.

"Of course not" said Steve "you can test the different things that we make."

"Recipes? Are you making food then?" asked Herobrine.

"No Herobrine" I said, "We are not making food."

"Actually" said Steve, "Some of the recipes that I have made are for food."

"Go do that guys" Notch said as he gestured for us to move away and go work somewhere else. "I just need a little more time." he said "I should be all done when you get back. Now go and do whatever you were just talking about doing. But do it somewhere else!"

"Lets go back to where the trees and water source are." said Steve "Then we will not have to travel as far in order to get materials."

"Fair enough" I said "But when we get back you better be done."

"Come on Shadow" said Steve "The faster that we leave, the sooner we can come back and see what Notch made."

"I am coming" I said as I followed them towards the trees. When we got to the trees, Steve began to punch down a tree.

"What did the tree do to you?" asked Herobrine.

"Nothing" said Steve "But we need resources in order to make anything." He finished punching down the tree and planted the saplings that he had collected from the leaves. "I have made some recipes already." he said, passing a block of wood to each of us. "First you have to turn the block of wood into four wooden plank blocks." Steve stared at the block for a moment, then as if by magic, the one small block of wood transformed into four blocks of planks.

"How did you do that?" asked Herobrine "I want to try."

"Just focus on the block." said Steve "Think about it dividing into pieces. You should end up with four miniature plank blocks." Steve then pushed the miniature blocks into a square shape, and with a small flash of light, the four blocks transformed into a block with a three by three grid on the top face, and several tools were shown on the other faces of the block. "This is a crafting bench or crafting table." said Steve "You can use it to make different recipes that take more than a two by two block space to make. Now you guys try to make one."

Hesitantly, I held the block of wood and willed it to divide. To my surprise, the wood almost immediately divided into four cubes of equal size, each with a pattern of parallel lines etched into it, as if they were not made of a solid piece of material. I forced the four cubes into a square shape, and after a few seconds, I was rewarded for my efforts with a crafting bench similar to Steve's. It was a bit lopsided, and some of the lines that made up the grid on top were crooked, but it was still recognizable as a crafting bench.

"That is really good for your first attempt Shadow." said Steve "Usually it takes more than one try to be able to create anything that even remotely resembles what it is supposed to be."

"Um guys" said Herobrine "I think I am doing something wrong." Herobrine sat on the ground surrounded by a small pile of sticks with a pathetic look on his face. "I tried to do what you said to , but this happened."

Steve attempted to hide a small grin at what Herobrine had done. "By any chance" he asked, "Did you put two planks on top of each other before you shoved them all together?"

"Um... yes" said Herobrine "I had two stacked on top of each other in each hand, and just before I was going to shove them together to make a crafting bench, the planks fell apart and left me with nothing but sticks."

"Oh Herobrine" sighed Steve "When you put two planks on top of each other, it makes sticks. I probably should have told you before. Would you like me to help you make one correctly?"

"No" said Herobrine sulkily "I can do it myself. Just give me some more wood and I will do it." Steve handed a new block of wood to Herobrine, and after a few moments, he had created a crafting bench that looked like it had been sat upon by a creature of enormous weight, and squished down to only a bit more than half a block in height.

"For someone who seems to specialize in destruction, you did a pretty good job." said Steve

"Um thanks, I think" said Herobrine

"We could probably go and see what Notch is doing now." I said "It has been quite a while, and he should be done by now surely."

"Lets go" said Steve "I can show you the other crafting recipes that I have made some other time, and who knows, I may have even made more by then with some of the new materials that are in caves."

We soon reached where Notch was working, for we had not gone far from where he was working. "Oh you are back" he said in a resigned tone, as if he had come to accept the inevitable fact that he was going to have to show us his creatures whether he was satisfied with them or not.

"Where are the creatures?" asked Herobrine.

"Over here" said Notch, moving towards a grove of trees that had been grown extremely close together. "The trees are there to keep them in. They have a bit of a habit of running away otherwise."

"Can we see them?" I asked, curious to see what type of creature was hidden within the grove.

"Fine" he said "I hope you like it." He led us into the grove. In front of us, there were many bipedal creatures in long brown robes, with their hands hidden in their sleeves. They had no hair, and their faces were dominated by a large protruding nose. A few had different colored robes or aprons, but other than that, they were all identical.

"They are... interesting" said Steve "Did you have any trouble making them?"

"No" said Notch, trying to avoid Steve's gaze, as if meeting his gaze would allow him to see the lie that he had been told.

"What do they do?" asked Herobrine

"Do they have to do something?" asked Notch with a desperate note in his voice "It took me long enough just to make them like this. I do not think that I could make them any better even if I tried."

"It is ok Notch" said Steve "You did your best, and that is all that matters. I could help you to make them better if you like."

"No!" said Notch "If you help me, it proves that I can not do it by myself. They are fine the way that they are."

"Ok." said Steve "I am sorry if my offer offended you"

"You should take him up on his offer." said Herobrine "It looks like you need the help"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Notch with barely controlled hostility in his voice.

"I mean exactly what I said." Herobrine replied "Most of the stuff you make is no good unless one of us helps you out."

"You take that back" said Notch

"Why should I" said Herobrine "It is true"

Notch looked furious and grabbed Herobrine by the front of his shirt and held him several inches off of the ground. "You take that back" he hissed.

"No" said Herobrine "And if it is a fight that you want then bring it on!"

"Guys chill" I said, pulling Herobrine's shirt out of Notch's grip and stepping between them. "Herobrine, apologize for what you said. You have no reason to say things like that about Notch. And Notch, chill out. You know Herobrine is only doing this to get attention."

"I guess you are right" said Herobrine "I am sorry bro. You know I did not mean it."

"Ok" said Notch with a resigned tone "You would have deserved to get beat up though."

"Ya probably" said Herobrine grinning, "But that is just how I roll."

"I have an idea guys" I said, "How about we show Notch the creatures that we made for his realm."

"Good idea" said Steve "Lets go"

When we got to Notch's realm, Steve put his hands over Notch's eyes. "No peaking" he said "You do not want to ruin the surprise."

"Ok" said Notch reluctantly "Just be careful you do not lead me off an edge or something."

"Got it" said Steve.

We walked over to where Herobrine had gathered the Valkyrie to meet Notch.

"You can open your eyes now" said Steve, pulling his hands away from Notch's eyes.

"Wow" said Notch as he opened his eyes "These creatures are cool. You guys did a really good job. But they will be even better after I give them light powers. I assume that you wanted me to do that?"

"Yup" said Steve, "They are in your realm, so they need your type of powers."

"Thanks guys." said Notch "These creatures will be a great addition to my realm." Under his breath, I heard him mutter, "And they will be a great addition to my plans."

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**A/N: Finally some action. Herobrine really knows how to make Notch angry. What plans are being made Notch? If you are enjoying this story, consider leaving a review. See you all next chapter. **


	8. Herobrine's Secret

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Guest of Anonymous origins and Kyuubi's Death for reviewing since last chapter. This chapter is even longer that the last one. If you want, you can PM or leave a review with a story prompt, and I might use it as a one-shot or short story. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft.**

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Several months have passes since Notch was introduced to the Valkyrie of his realm. Since then, we have helped Notch to create more creatures for his realm. I also helped Steve to create the main creatures of the overworld- the Crafters. Like us gods, they had the ability to craft almost anything. The only other species that comes close to them in intelligence are the Valkyrie, who can craft a bit. The Crafter communities have grown greatly ever since new items and recipes have been added to their world. The Crafters built shelters for the testificates, who did not have the ability to craft or speak to us. Crafters have mainly been bothered by Herobrine's creations of creepers and lava. Lately though, strange things have been happening. Crafters and testificates have been disappearing, and their kin demand answers. They went to Steve, who was their lord for answers. Steve then called all of us together to help find out what is happening to these creatures.

"So" said Steve "Do any of you know what has happened to these Crafters and testificates that have gone missing?"

"For the last time" said Notch "We have no ides where they are."

"That is not exactly true." said Herobrine sheepishly.

"What haven't you been telling us?" I asked him.

"Answer carefully." said Steve "I am not in a good mood after having to deal with frantic Crafters for the last week and a half."

"Well" said Herobrine "I have had a couple of… incidents with my powers when I was near some settlements."

"What do you mean "Incidents"?" I asked.

"I was walking through the forest" said Herobrine "Near one of the larger Crafter settlements when my powers started doing some very strange things. A Crafter saw me, and I heard him say that I had a hazy aura of magic surrounding me. I felt the urge to release the power growing within me, so I stretched my arm out towards him. When I did so, a beam of energy shot towards him, and when it touched him, he turned into a zombie."

"What!" said Steve in shock "You turned one of my people into a zombie!"

"Did you do it on purpose Herobrine?" I asked gently, thinking that maybe it had just been an accident.

"Not that time no." said Herobrine.

"What do you mean "that time"" asked Notch "Has this happened more than once?"

"Unfortunately yes" said Herobrine reluctantly.

"Why would you do such a thing?" I asked

"I do not know" said Herobrine, a twinge of shame entering his voice "Something just came over me whenever it happened. It was almost like I was not actually in control of myself at those moments. I felt like I was watching someone else perform my action for me, yet I was still the one carrying them out." Herobrine's description of what had happened made me wonder if, like Notch, he was being controlled by the chaos lord. Unlike Notch, it seemed that Herobrine had control of himself and his will most of the time. Perhaps Herobrine was more difficult to control, or maybe he was not needed all of the time. Either way, I knew that the lord of chaos must have some role in these strange instances of creation.

One thing about Herobrine's story did not make sense to me though. "If this has happened many times" I asked "Then why have I never seen any of these creatures?"

"I hid them" said Herobrine "I knew that if any of you saw them, then I was in big trouble. At first I hid them in caves, but then they started getting out and turning other Crafters to creatures like them. So I had to hide them elsewhere."

"Where could you possibly have hidden them?" asked Steve "There is no place in my realm where you could hide such a number of these monstrosities as you say you have."

"No there is no such place in your realm." said Herobrine, staring down at the table in front of him, his eyes filled with a mixture of guilt and shame.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Notch suspiciously.

"Yes tell us." said Steve "I want to know where my people are being spirited away to."

"Fine." said Herobrine "Come with me."

"You could just tell us." I said.

"No" said Herobrine "It is not something that I can put into words easily. It will be easier just to show you."

Herobrine led us to his castle, which was located on a mountain top shrouded in mist, with a forest of tall oak and birch trees surrounding it.

"Why have you brought us here?" asked Steve "I have been here many times and have never noticed anything strange about it."

"You have never noticed anything strange because you were not looking" said Herobrine "I keep my secrets well hidden." He walked over to one of the large paintings that lined the hallway where we stood, and pushed a small, raised section of the frame. This caused a sound of pistons retracting, and I realized that there was a secret area concealed behind the painting. I looked over to where Herobrine stood, and sure enough, a section of the painting had retracted back into the wall. Herobrine strode into the narrow hallway, giving no explanation as to what was located at its finish.

"Should we follow him?" asked Steve, with a note of hesitation in his voice.

"What other choice do we have?" said Notch as he turned to follow Herobrine down the hallway "We will never find out what he was talking about if we do not."

I followed Notch into the hallway, giving Steve a look that said "Follow me" before I did so. The hallway was poorly lit, and in some places the ceiling was barely tall enough to allow easy walking. At last, after many minutes, the corridor opened into an expansive room which must have occupied much of the space underneath the castle. At the end of the room, I saw a familiar shape.

"Is that a portal?" asked Notch.

"Yes" said Herobrine "But not one to your realm."

As we drew closer to the portal, I saw that this was the truth. The frame was made of a dark substance that seemed to draw light towards it and extinguished it. The substance in the frame had the same swirling pattern, but it was a purple color. Particles of the purple mist flew off of the portal as we watched. This portal was much more sinister that the one that led to Notch's realm.

"Where does this lead?" asked Notch in shock "Have you connected our realm to the void with a dark gate?" I thought that the possibility Notch suggested was rather unlikely, due to the fact that I had never met anyone who could create a void gate without vaporising themselves, the area around them, and the gate that they trying to make.

"No brother" said Herobrine "I shall show you where it leads." With that, he stepped into the portal and we followed him into the swirling portal. Going through the portal was a lot less comfortable than going through the one in the Aether. It felt like I was being squished down into a tiny point. Then, all of a sudden, the pressure stopped and the world on the other side of the portal was revealed. As soon as I stepped off of the portal frame, a wave of dry heat wafted over me. I gazed at this new realm. It was mostly made of a soft, porous rock which varied in color from dark red to a light pinkish hue. Huge seas of lava were scattered around, being fed by lava streams that descended from the distant roof of the cave-like realm. Clusters of glowstone clung to the roof, illuminating the realm's upper regions. Herobrine led us to a fortress made of dark bricks that was built directly over an enormous sea of lava.

"This is where I keep the creatures who have changed." he said at last. Before us was a huge arena like room in the fortress. Inside it were many dark-colored skeletons wielding swords. A few skeletons were white and carried bows. There were also some pig-like creatures who looked half dead and wielded golden swords. "These are the creatures that I have hidden here" said Herobrine "Many of them changed when they were brought through the portal and became what you see now.

"I am not surprised" I said "There is no chaos shielding in this realm. It just seeps in from the void and changes things whenever it likes. Whoever made this realm obviously had never built one before."

"It is not my fault" said Herobrine "You guys did that stuff without me. How was I supposed to know that you had to build stuff like that into a realm."

"Wait" said Notch "Are you saying that you are the one who created this realm?"

"Yep" said Herobrine, sounding rather pleased with himself. "Sure it is not perfect, but I tried my best, and I think it is pretty cool."

"Why did you do this?" asked Steve, a look of dismay on his face.

"Yes Herobrine" said Notch "Why did you make a realm of your own. I had said that anyone who made a realm would be exiled."

"You never told me that" said Herobrine "Did he tell you shadow?"

"No" I said "He never informed me that any such rule was in place."

"I didn't?" said Notch, feigning surprise "My mistake. In that case, this one time I will overlook your rule breaking. All you have to do in order for me to do so is to destroy this realm. Then we will forget about the fact that you ever built a realm and go on with our lives."

"Why would you even consider that I would even consider doing such a thing?" yelled Herobrine "I spent so long on this realm, and now you just want me to destroy it like it was nothing. There is no way that I would ever do what you are suggesting that I should do."

"Well then I guess you better start enjoying being exiled." said Notch "Remember that you brought this upon yourself though. I did give you a way out."

"You knew that I would never accept it though." said Herobrine "You are doing all of this just to get rid of me. I never thought that the one who would betray my trust so badly would be my own brother."

"Notch be reasonable" I said "You have a realm of your own, so why shouldn't Herobrine be allowed to have one too?"

"I am in charge, I need to have a realm so that I can oversee the actions of the lesser creatures." said Notch "But if you want to keep siding with Herobrine, feel free to join him in exile. In fact, since you seem to like this realm of yours so much Herobrine, how about you are exiled to this place."

I seriously hoped that Herobrine had not realized that he and the rest of us had been called "lesser creatures" by Notch. If he did, then we would never get out of here without a major fight. I was not sure if Notch was serious about exiling Herobrine to this realm. Sometimes he would threaten to do such things when Herobrine annoyed him, but he had never gone through with them before. With the lord of chaos influencing him, I had no idea if he might actually go through with this plan of his.

"Last chance" said Notch

"You should not even have bothered asking." said Herobrine "The answer has not changed, and it never will.

"Very well." said Notch "In the name of the sky realm, I banish you to this nether realm. I also cast upon you this spell, so that all creatures who encounter you in this realm will know you to be the traitor that you truly are." Notch spoke some strange sounding words, then looked pleased with himself. Herobrine and I glanced at each other, confused, for nothing appeared to have changed. As I did so, I realized what Notch had done.

"Ha!" said Herobrine "Your little plan failed."

"I do not think that it did." I said hesitantly, handing Herobrine a flat shard of glass that I had picked up from a broken Crafter window a while back.

"What are you talking about?" asked Herobrine, clearly confused. He then looked at his reflection in the glass, and saw that his eyes had been turned pure white. The expression on his face shifted from confusion, to unhappiness, then to anger. Even I could barely believe what Notch had done to him.

"Why did you do this?" I asked.

"He needed to be taught a lesson" said Notch "Those who mess with me, suffer the consequences."

Steve spoke for the first time in many minutes "When did this become about you? I thought that we were here to deal with the mystery of what was happening to the Crafters. The whole world does not revolve around you Notch, and the sooner that you learn that, the better it will be for all of us."

"Ya Notch" said Herobrine "Now get out of here. You guys have caused enough trouble for me already today."

Notch and Steve headed towards the portal. As I was heading towards the portal after them, Herobrine walked up behind me and whispered "Do not leave yet, I want to talk to you about something."

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**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. Please consider leaving a review about what you liked or with a prompt for a story you would like me to write. See you all next chapter.**


	9. A Talk in the Nether

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Kyuubi's Death for reviewing this past week. Let the chapter commence. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft.**

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As the others left, I hung back as Herobrine requested. After they passed through the portal, Herobrine went over to it and placed a block of the pink stone into the portal, causing the waves of purple mist to disappear.

"Is there any reason in particular that you have locked me in your realm?" I asked Herobrine casually, trying to hide the panic that had risen within me when the portal went out.

"Relax" said Herobrine, seeing my concern. "I just closed the portal so that Notch and Steve could not interrupt us while we are talking. Some of the things that we have to talk about should stay a secret from them."

"I suppose that makes sense." I said "What did you want to talk about?"

"I was wondering if you had noticed anything strange about Notch lately." said Herobrine.

"Yes I have." I said.

Herobrine waited for a moment, as if inviting me to elaborate. When I did not, he said "Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes I do" I said.

"Come on." said Herobrine "You can not tell me that you know something like that, then refuse to tell me about it."

"Sure I can." I said "You can not make me."

"You are in my realm and I deactivated the portal." said Herobrine "There is no way you can get back to the overworld without my help. Unless you think that you know how to relight the portal?"

"I guess you are right." I said "I have no idea how to relight the portal. I suppose I will tell you what I have figured out. But remember, everything that I am going to tell you is just an educated guess. There could be another perfectly reasonable explanation that I just have not thought of."

"I am aware that Notch has not told you everything that he planned down to the littlest detail." Herobrine said dryly "Otherwise you would not be here, you would be off stopping his plans. Your educated guesses are usually more accurate than most people's frantic searches anyway. So go ahead, I am listening."

"Well" I said "I first noticed something weird when he declared himself leader."

"That was weird." said Herobrine "I knew he wanted to be able to tell us what to do whenever he wanted, but I never thought that he would declare his takeover so abruptly."

"Well that got me thinking" I said "The only major thing that has happened lately was the attack by the chaos lord."

"Wait" said Herobrine "Are you saying that the chaos lord did something to Notch when he drained some of our energy?"

"I think that when we were knocked out, the lord of chaos cast a spell that would allow him to speak to Notch in secret and find out what would motivate him to betray us. Then he convinced Notch to help him by telling Notch that he would be able to rule us. This gave the chaos lord enough power over Notch to be able to influence what he did at first, and eventually, as we saw earlier, to take over almost completely."  
"How do you know that the chaos lord almost took full control of Notch based on what happened earlier." asked Herobrine

"I know" I said "Because when he cursed you, he used a spell that was in a language that I have never heard before."  
"You have never heard it before?" exclaimed Herobrine, looking shocked. "I thought that you knew all of the languages of magic."

"Not quite." I said "I never learned the language of void magic. This leads me to believe that the lord of chaos is using Notch as a host in order to cause unrest among us."

"Wow." said Herobrine "I figured that something weird was going on with Notch, but I never dreamed that it would be something like this. I still am not going to forgive him for banishing me here though."

"I would not even consider asking you to do so until we have put things right." I said

"But Shadow" said Herobrine "What if we can't?"

"Then we will cross that bridge when we come to it." I said

"What are we going to do about Notch?" asked Herobrine "I would love to go and give him a piece of my mind, but I can't. That means it is going to be up to you."

"I know" I said "I have already put a few of finding information in place, but I will be working on a way to get you out of here. Fixing your curse may be beyond what I can do, but I should be able to at least make it so that you can project your powers out into the overworld if I can not let you out completely."  
"That would be awesome." said Herobrine "I am going to get so bored in here otherwise. You do know that even though I may be stuck here, there is nothing stopping my creatures from causing trouble."

"That is a good point." I said "Also, you may not be able to leave here, but there is nothing to stop the crafters from coming here. If you tell me how to make the portal, I can make sure that people will find out about it."

"I like the way you think." said Herobrine, grinning "If you can not go to them, make them come to you. That will drive Steve and Notch nuts."

"So how do you make the portal?" I asked.

Herobrine glanced at the unlit portal. "If I tell you" he said "You have to promise that you will not leave until we are done talking."

"Of course" I said

"Ok" said Herobrine "First you need to make some obsidian by pouring water onto lava source blocks. It can only be mined with a diamond pickaxe, and even then it takes a long time to break. Take fourteen blocks and make the frame shape five blocks tall and four blocks wide. To light it, take a flint and steel and set fire to the inside of the portal frame, and the portal should appear."

"Couldn't you make the portal with only ten blocks of obsidian?" I asked.

"Sure" said Herobrine "If you really wanted to. But then it does not look as cool."

"Good to know" I said sarcastically "Because in this conflict, the most important thing is definitely how amazing something looks."When I said this, Herobrine gave me a strange look.

"Are you sure that you are not being affected that force too?" he asked "Usually you think that the most important thing about anything about anything is that is aesthetically pleasing."

"I know" I said, slumping against one of the dark brick walls "Being all sneaky like this is tiring. I do not know how you do it all the time Herobrine."

"It gets easier after a while." he said "I usually am just doing it for fun, and the fate of the realm does not depend on me. That tends to make things more stressful you know."

"So are we done here?" I asked

"For now" said Herobrine "I do want you to come back soon though. I have some ideas for creatures that I need some help with. If you see any new creatures in the overworld, assume that they are my work."

"Got it" I said "Can you light the portal for me now?"

"Sure" said Herobrine. He went over to the portal, and I heard the clicking noise of a flint and steel. A few seconds later, the portal sprung to life.

"Why didn't you use a spell to light that?" I asked, confused, for fire spells were something that Herobrine usually excelled at.

"I have not been using my powers lately" said Herobrine "Ever since the weird thins happened with them that caused those changes in crafters, I have been afraid that if I used my powers, then I would loose control again."

I wondered if I should tell Herobrine what I suspected had caused the outbursts of his powers, then decided against it. It would do him no good to know that I suspected him of also being controlled by the lord of chaos sometimes.

"On the subject of magic" Herobrine said just as I was about to step through the portal, why don't you give crafters some magic of their own, so that they can decide what side of this conflict that they want to be a part of, if they want to get involved at all."

"I will work on that" I said as I stepped through the portal, wondering what would be waiting for me on the other side.

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**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. If you did, consider leaving a review. You can also PM me or leave me a review with prompts for oneshots or short stories. See you all next chapter.**


	10. Family Divisions

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank BloodLily16 and Stackz for reviewing this week. Your reviews motivate me to write more. Now on with the story.**

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When I stepped through the portal, I was promptly jumped on by Steve.

"Oh we were so worried about you" he said "We did not know how we were going to get you out of there after the portal closed."

"Who is we?" I asked, glancing at the area around us to see if I had missed any other creatures who were waiting with Steve.

"Well Notch was waiting here with me." said Steve "But he said that he had something really important that he needed to check on. He said that he would be back as soon as he could though."

I sighed. Steve was always so trusting, willing to believe anything that you told him, and Notch had ditched him here just because he would rather work on his own projects than stay here with Steve to wait for someone he cared for. "Um Steve" I said "How long have you been waiting here anyway?"

Steve looked confused for a moment, then said "I am not really sure. There are no clocks around here, and I could not see the sun."

"Weren't you bores thought?" I asked

"Not really" said Steve "I was a bit at first after Notch left, but then I just kept watching the swirls in the portal spin, and it made it feel like no time at all."

"Well we better go and find out how long we have been gone. Your people will get worried if we stay away for too long."

"But what if Notch comes back?" asked Steve "If we are not here, he might think that Herobrine has us as his captives."

Inwardly, I grimaced. Notch was unlikely to come back, but if he did, he would most definitely come to the conclusion that Steve had suggested, if only so that he could use it as an excuse to cause Herobrine more pain. For even if he had not shown it, I could tell that Herobrine had been hurt deeply by Notch's actions. He had always thought that Notch would be there whenever he needed him, a constant force keeping him on the right path, but he had reached the point where he needed his twin brother more than any other time, and Notch had left him alone.

"Your right Steve" I said "Notch would blame that on Herobrine, and I think he has already had enough trouble today. You go and find out how long we have been down here, and I will wait here in case Notch comes back."

"Ok" said Steve "That should work."

About fifteen minutes later, Steve dashed back into the portal room. "So I went ans found a person" he said, "And they said that they saw someone leave here two days ago and we came here the day before that, so Notch had been gone way too long, and oh Shadow I do not know what to do!"

"Whoa slow down" I said to him "Start from the beginning. It will take longer if you just leave me with bits and pieces of the story that I must put together."

"Ok" said Steve "I am sorry that I am talking so much but I am just so stressed, and you know that I just don't stop talking when I am scared."

"Enough Steve" I said to him, holding a finger to his lips. "You are going to tell me what you found out in a calm manner, without going into unnecessary side stories."

Steve made a noise as if to answer my question, and I presses my finger more firmly against his lips "Got it?" I asked "Nod yes or shake no" Steve nodded his head emphatically, and I removed my finger from in front of his mouth.

"Alright" said Steve "So I went out and found a village close to here. One of the Crafters who guards it said that he saw us come here three days ago. He also told me that he saw someone leave two days ago. That means that Notch has been gone for two days and he has not come back yet. Something must have happened to him to keep him from coming back. He would never leave his family alone otherwise."

"Steve" I said hesitantly, wondering how to best phrase my next words so that they would not hurt Steve "I do not think that Notch intended to come back. I think he was just using this as an excuse to get you out of the way so that he could carry out his plans."

Steve looked at me, horror and shock passing over his face in turn. "Notch would never do something like that" he said in a loud voice, barely restrained anger showing in his every word. "You should know that."

"Then why did he do such a terrible thing to Herobrine?" I asked.

The anger in Steve's voice turned to sadness, and tear drops ran down his face as he said "Notch was right about you. He said you would try to make us all turn against him. I did not want to believe him, but he said that you were going to use your power as the oldest to gain power over us."

I leaned on a nearby wall to steady myself, shocked by what I was hearing "But Steve that is not true" I said "I have always tried to lead you all on the right path."

"The right path for you maybe" said Steve, still crying "You and Herobrine are clearly planning something, so I am going to put what power I have towards supporting Notch" He turned to leave the room.

"Steve wait" I said "Please do not do this. Herobrine and I may be working on something together, but it is to benefit us." The look on Steve's face told me that this was not the best thing that I could have said at the time.

"I see that I was correct" he said "You are doing business with Herobrine behind Notch's back. I am sure that you believe what you say, but when you say "Us" think about who you mean."

"No Steve that is not what I"

I was cut off by Steve, who said "Think about the path you are going on, and where your true loyalties lie. You follow your path and I will follow mine. I will see you when it all goes down."

With that he left, leaving me slumped against a wall, wondering how this day had gone so badly. It was now clear to me that Notch was trying to remove all of my allies so that I would be left vulnerable. His chaos lord friend could then influence me to use my magic for his dark plans. The first thing that I needed to get to ensure that this would not happen would be allies. I straightened up from my position against the wall and left Herobrine's castle. I headed for a large fort-like construction that had been built on a large island. It was one of three bases that I had created throughout the world. Once I arrived there, I quickly went to work on finding a way to break Herobrine out of his Nether prison. This reminded me of what Herobrine had said about giving Crafters a choice about which side of this they wanted to be a part of. I had not really considered it before, but now that Steve had sided with Notch, the idea seemed to have more and more value. I found my book on simple enchanting, one of the most basic forms of magic. Then I set to work on creating a form of it that Crafters could use to improve their tools and armor. After many hours of labor, at last I got the system to work. I even managed to make the recipe on the Crafting bench, which I still had trouble with sometimes. Afterwards, I decided that I should show Herobrine. Not wanting to run into Notch or Steve, I decided that it would be easier to just build a portal in my base so that I had an easy access to one. I went into my storage room and pulled out a bucket of water and some diamonds. After a few minutes of crafting, I created a diamond pickaxe so that I would be able to mine the obsidian that I needed for the portal. I had originally grabbed enough for the portal without corners from a chest in Herobrine's base, but I had used some of it in the construction of my enchanting table.

After a few minutes of searching in the area directly around my base for a lava flow, I finally decided to try looking from the air. I focused like Herobrine had said, and after a few tries, I was able to shakily fly without too much trouble. I finally found a lava pool, and landed a decent distance from its edge. I walked over and dumped the bucket of water out onto the rim of the pool, careful not to spill any onto myself. It flowed out from the source block and when it came into contact with the lava, a loud hissing noise could be heard, and a dark rock was formed. I was about to pick up the water source block again so that I could mine the obsidian, when I heard someone say "What are you doing?"

This made me jump and nearly fall into what lava was left in the pool. I turned to where I had heard the voice and saw a teen Crafter staring at me "I said what are you doing" he repeated "This lava is what my family uses to run our furnace. And now you came and turned it all to this weird rock."

"Sorry" I said, pulling out my diamond pickaxe "But I need the obsidian. I will put it back to the way it was after I finish. Now if you will excuse me, I need to mine this."

The Crafter refused to take the hint and leave "Are you a god?" he asked "You look like how my friend described Steve, but you are much too rude to be him."

I turned to him with an exasperated look. "What do you mean I am being rude. I am being perfectly reasonable with you."

"You are really rude" the Crafter insisted "You came here and started doing your thing without asking, and now you are arguing with me."

I finally finished mining the last piece of obsidian that I needed in order to construct the portal. "There I am done" I said "Now I will put it back to the way it was before and be on my way."

I thought for a moment, then muttered a few words and gestured at the pool. A large flash of light appeared over that area, and when it had faded, there was no trace of my work in the lava pool. As I left the Crafter standing there stunned, I heard him gasp "He really is a god. Huh, a rude god. Who knew such things existed." sighing, I went off to create my new gateway to the Nether.

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**A/N: I hope that you liked this chapter of Shadow's Story. If you did, please consider leaving a review. You can also leave a review or PM me with prompts for stories you would like me to write. See you all next chapter.**


	11. Return to the Nether

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Stackz and Kyuubi's Death for reviewing this week. On with the chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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When I finally returned to my base after the incident with the Crafter, I set to work building my portal to the Nether. I cut out an alcove in the wall that would conceal the obsidian and leave only the portal center visible. I then lit it with a flame spell, and watched the purple swirls appear in the portal. I grabbed the enchanting stuff that I had made from a nearby chest, and stepped into the portal, wondering if this trip would be as bad as the first one that I had taken.

The journey was just like I had remembered it, and it still hurt just as much as it did when I did not know what was going to happen. When at last I was deposited into the Nether, and the world had stopped spinning, I looked at my surroundings. I wondered if distance was different in the Nether than it was in the Overworld. That would explain why there was nothing that I recognized around. I decided that the only way that I was ever going to be able to find Herobrine in this place would be to telepathically call to him. I hesitated for a moment, for Herobrine had a habit of accidentally telepathically incapacitating people with his sendings, and if that happened while I was here, there was little chance that I would be found for a long time. I decided to risk it though, for I did need to find Herobrine,and this seemed like it would be the quickest way to contact him. I sent out a tendril of thought saying "Herobrine, Herobrine can you hear me?"

I sensed a confused presence come into contact with the thought, then I felt a hesitant reply "Shadow is that you?" it said

"Yes, yes it is me" I thought back, "Are you Herobrine?"

"Yes I am" he sent back "Why are you in my realm? And why haven't you traveled through the portal in my castle?"

"I shall tell you later" I thought to him "First, may you help me reach your fortress?"

"Sure" he sent back "What landmarks can you see around where you are."

"Well" I sent "There is a large spire of netherrack coming out of a large lava pool with a clump of glowstone perched on its top. There is also a large white shape to the left of this landmark."

Herobrine was silent for a moment, then he asked "Is the white shape moving?"

I glanced at the shape and saw that it had indeed moved closer to the center of the lava sea. "Yes it has" I said

Herobrine was silent once more, then he said "Ok, stay where you are. I am coming to get you Whatever you do though, do not get any closer to the white thing. And stay still."

I sensed that he was keeping something from me, and I asked "Why must I stay still?"

"I will tell you once I get there" he said to me.

"Fine" I sent "I will wait here all alone for you to arrive."

When Herobrine finally arrived, I was so bored that I had resorted to counting the number of glowstone blocks in each of the clusters that I could see far above my head. "Good you are still alive" he said "I do not know what I would have done if I had not gotten here in time."

"What do you mean?" I asked. Herobrine was about to reply, when a large fireball shot through the air towards me. Hastily, I jumped out of its path, carefully avoiding a plunge into lava.

"That is what I was worried about." said Heorbrine.

"What is that thing anyway?" I asked.

"It is a Ghast" said Herobrine "I created it based on the Aerowhales in the Aether. Unfortunately, it is a bit territorial."

"A bit!" I exclaimed "How does it even know where its territory is?"

"Well that is the thing" said Herobrine "They work together, so they think that the whole Nether is their territory. They tolerate the mobs who live here naturally, but they have a thing against anyone from another realm, They almost got me before I told them I made this realm."

"Why did you make them in the first place?" I asked Herobrine.

"I was just making new creatures." said Herobrine "I also made a version of Steve's slimes that live here in the Nether."

"What happened to those guys anyway?" I asked "There used to be so many of them, and now there are none around."

"I can explain that" said Herobrine, grinning an evil grin "A while ago, all those happy slimes hopping about were driving me nuts. So I put a spell on them that caused them to join together and form bigger slimes that split apart when they were killed. I figures that I would get some amusement out of them before Steve made me change them back, but the spell had an unexpected side effect. Slimes are now extremely rare in the Overworld except in certain locations at extremely low elevations and in swamp biomes."

"Are you saying what I think that you are saying?" I said, a small grin showing on my face.

"Yup" said Herobrine "Steve still has not noticed what I did. He has not even noticed the absence of the slimes, since he has been so busy with the missing Crafters."

We were reminded of the dangerous location where we were holding our conversation when another fireball smashed into the ground between us. "It seems that we have overstayed our welcome" I said as another fireball streaked towards our location. "Lets go to your fort before this Ghast figures out that it could get rid of us quite easily if it shoots at the platform where we are standing rather than directly where we are standing."

"Agreed" said Herobrine. A look showed on his face as if something had suddenly occurred to him "How are you going to get there? There are lava lakes between here and my fortress, and I am not strong enough to carry you when I am flying."

"Yes that would be a problem" I said "If I could not fly. Fortunately, I figured out how since the last time I saw you."

"That is good" said Herobrine, letting out the breath that he had been holding in. "I suppose I should think about these types of things before and not after I am already here."

"True" I said "But it does not matter right now. Let us be on our way. Which direction do we go in order to travel to your fortress?"

"Uh, that way" said Herobrine, pointing to a direction some ways behind me. I turned to look where he was pointing, and grimaced as I saw what was coming into view.

"You mean the way with the huge angry Ghast in it?" I asked.

Herobrine glanced over to behind where I was standing, and said "yup, unfortunately for you, at least, that is the way that we are going to have to go." We both took a moment to focus ourselves so that we would be able to fly. It took me a bit longer than it had before, for the first Ghast could still be heard crying its fiery tears as it prepared to throw more fireballs at us. At last though, I was able to achieve a level of concentration that allowed me to fly.

When I finally achieved flight, I glanced above my head to where Herobrine floated, grinning at me "So you learned to fly" he said "You really need to practice though. You may need to fly away from a situation at some point, and there will not be a chance to spend many minutes concentrating then."

"I know: I said "Can we get going? I have no desire to find out how long it takes me to stop flying."

"Sure" said Herobrine "I will go and distract the Ghast. That should give you enough time to get across the lava lake that it is guarding. I will meet you on the other side."

"Ok" I said hesitantly, for I was not sure that I was ready to travel alone in this strange dimension . He flew off to confront the Ghast, and I began flying across the seemingly endless lava lake.

When I finally saw the opposite edge of the lake, I was filled with relief. This feeling did not last long , for suddenly I felt something shoving me forward rapidly. I struggled to see what unknown force was doing so, and I glimpsed a bit of cyan fabric, and I realized that Herobrine was the one pushing me forward.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"No time to explain" said Herobrine "We need to get away from here now." With no other explanation, I was forced to wait to find out what happened as Herobrine accelerated our flight towards his still distant fortress.

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**A/N:I hope that you enjoyed the chapter. If you did, consider leaving a review. You can also PM me or leave a review with prompts for new stories. See you all next week.**


	12. Meeting with the Ghasts

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Lunaris14 and Guest (they did not leave a name) for reviewing this week. Random information about the story, Shadow's return to the nether was originally only supposed to last one chapter. At this point though, it looks like it will last three to four chapters.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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When at last we reached Herobrine's fortress, we both collapsed onto the netherbrick pathway that connected two of the large towers in the complex of buildings. I was not sure why I was so tired at first, for Herobrine had been the one doing the majority of the flying. Then I realized that he must have been using some of my energy in order to move us both at such high speeds.

After another moment lying on the ground, Herobrine struggled to his feet, leaning on the side of the pathway for support. He offered me a hand, and I grabbed it, using it to rise to my feet.

"We need to get inside" said Herobrine "They will be here soon. They can fly quite a bit faster than either of us can right now."

"Who is coming?" I asked.

"The Ghasts" said Herobrine "They are not too pleased with me right now. Apparently since you are here, they think that I have allied myself with the Crafters."

"Why would they think that?" I asked "I am not allied with the Crafters."

"True" said Herobrine "But Steve is. And since neither of you have changed your forms, you look almost identical."

"Oh right" I said, face palming "Why didn't I think of that."

"To be fair" said Herobrine "That is not usually the first thing you think about when you are in this type of situation."

"True" I said "Now which way is the way that we should go?"

"Follow me" said Herobrine. He led me into one of the tall towers that the walkway we were on connected to. Once inside it, we walked through many twists and turns. The dark corridors all looked identical, and I soon lost my way in the fortress. The only thing that kept me from mining through the wall and escaping from the enclosures that were the narrow corridors, was the sight of Herobrine walking calmly in front of me. I had to trust that he would not lead me astray, even if it was for the simple reason that I was more helpful to him in my current state than if I was injured or trapped.

At last, the narrow tunnel opened into a large room full of a random collection of items that were usually found exclusively in the Overworld. The room was lit by small pools of lava surrounded by netherbrick fences, with a square of stair steps on top. The look of them was quite pleasing actually, and I wondered how long it had taken to create such a simple yet elegant design. I told myself to focus. I would never figure out the current level of danger that I was in if I was admiring the decor. Even so, I could not help but ask "Where did all of this stuff come from?"

"Various places" said Herobrine "I had most of it when I was trapped here. Some of it is from the Crafters who were turned into zombies and skeletons though."

"So how dangerous are these Ghasts" I asked "They should not be too bad" said Herobrine "As long as we stay in here and they do not call their king." Immediately after he said this, and enormous explosion could be heard high above us.

"You jinxed it" I said, giving him an accusatory look.

"It does sound that way doesn't it" agreed Herobrine "But I am sure that there are tons of things that are just as likely to have caused that noise."

"Really" I said "Name one" When Herobrine failed to come up with one after a minute, I gave him a look that said "See I was right"

"Alright, I can not think of any" said Herobrine, seeing the look that I was giving him.

"Well lets go and deal with the Ghast king then." I said.

"Do you have a bow?" asked Herobrine "If we are going to be fighting Ghast, then you will need one."

"If my plan works, we will not have to do any fighting" I said.

"Well ok" said Herobrine doubtfully "But it is all on you if something happens to us."

"Fair enough" I said "Now I have no idea which way leads back out of the fortress. So lead on." Herobrine grabbed some arrows from a chest and walked into one of the many corridors that connected to the room. I gave the room one last glance before I went to follow Herobrine. Something sticking out of one of the chests caught my eye, and I grinned as I saw what it was. Quickly I grabbed it and ran after Herobrine, hoping that I would be able to find him in the maze of tunnels.

When at last we reached the outside of the fortress, neither of us was prepared for the level of damage that the Ghast king had been able to do. Huge craters had been blasted into many of the towers, and few of the bridges that connected them remained.

The cause of the damage became apparent when I spotted a group of Ghast flying not far from the fortress. They were arranged in a formation that would center the center one if an attack occurred. It did not seem that this precaution was needed, for the Ghast in the center seemed perfectly capabel of defending itself. In fact as I watched, it threw a fireball at least twice as big as the ones that I had seen before. I figured that this must be the king Ghast. Concentrating, I managed to start flying without too much difficulty.

"Shadow what are you doing?" said Herobrine in a slightly panicked voice "If you go over there, the Ghasts will get you."

"Relax Herobrine" I said "I have got everything under control." under my breath, so that no one other than myself could hear it, I said "At least I think I do."

I flew over to where the group of Ghast had stationed themselves, careful to arrive at a time when a fireball was not immediately going to shoot me out of the sky. The center Ghast looked at me and said "So you are the Crafter lord who dares to travel our realm. I never thought that you would show yourself so easily."

"You see" I said, then stopped, for I did not know the name of the Ghast king.

"So you do not know my name little Crafter lord." the Ghast king said "I should not be surprised. One cannot expect the ruler of a people such as the Crafters to know the names of the royalty of the great Ghast nation. You may adress me as King Chenzir."

"So you see Chenzir" I said, deliberately not calling him by his title. No Ghast will get me to call him king if I can possibly help it. "This entire thing is simply a case of mistaken identity. You seem to think that I am Steve, the Crafter's lord. I am not him. I am his brother Shadow, and I would be very happy if you would stop destroying Herobrine's base and get on with the rest of your lives."

"Oh" said Chenzir, looking a bit surprised "I was not aware that Steve had a brother other than Herobrine."

"Yes he most defiantly does" I said "He has three brothers. Myself, Steve, and Notch"

"I was not informed of this" said the Ghast king "Now my people will respect me even less than they already do as a result of this confusion."

"Why don't they respect you?" I asked "After all, you are their king."

"They say that I hide myself away from them, when in fact I travel around this realm all the time. The main problem is that I look exactly the same as all of the other Ghasts."

"I think I can help you with that problem." I said, pulling out the object that I had grabbed from Herobrine's room of random stuff.

"A gold crown!" exclaimed Chenzir "Where did you get one of those. They are usually closely kept by the zombies pigmen."

"Lets just say that I know people." I said. I floated over to where the Ghast king was "May I?" I asked, holding out the crown.

"Please do" said the Ghast king. I placed the gold crown onto the Ghast and floated a bit closer to the fortress.

"Are we done here?" I asked.

"It seems so." said the Ghast king. "I thank you for your help in distinguishing me from my people. You should get something that allows people to tell the difference between you and Steve."

"I will eventually" I said "Maybe I shall see you later. Until then though, I wish you good fortune." With that, I flew back towards the damaged nether fortress, where Herobrine could be seen standing on the edge of one of the bridges that stretched between towers.

"So how did it go?" asked Herobrine "I am guessing pretty well because you did not get blasted out of the air."

"Ya it went fine" I said "I gave him one of the gold crowns that I found in your fortress, and explained how it was a big misunderstanding."

"Why did you give him one of the gold crowns that I collected?" demanded Herobrine. Before I could explain, he said "It is not a big deal. I just wish you had told me about your plan first. I do not like having to watch you do things. Especially when I know that if your plan does not work, you are going to get blasted."

"Fair enough Herobrine" I said, concealing a grin, for I had not known that Herobrine cared so much. I suppose that I do not give him enough credit sometimes. "Now I came here in the first place to show you something."

"Oh what is it?" said Herobrine, excitement showing in his eyes. He had always been fond of new items.

"I will tell you once we go back inside your fortress." I said

"Well what are you waiting for then?" said Herobrine, shoving me towards one of the tunnels. "Lets get going"

"Stop pushing" I said "I can do my own walking. Just show me the way and I will follow."

"it is this way." said Herobrine, darting into one of the side tunnels. Grinning at his excitement, I followed him as he ran deeper into the fortress.

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**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed the chapter. Feel free to leave a review with questions about the story or just what you liked about it. I will see you all next chapter. Bye :)**


	13. Enchanting and Potions

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank EmeraldBreaker46 for reviewing this week. This chapter is quite a bit longer than usual due to the fact that I wanted to wrap up Shadow's time in the Nether. I hope that you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft.**

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After walking for what seemed like forever, we returned to the room full of Herobrine's things. Something was different though. After a minute, I figured out what it was.

"How did it get cleaner in here?" I asked.

Herobrine blushed. "When I am nervous, I clean" he said "Is that such a bad thing?"

"No" I said "And I am not judging you. But I have never noticed you cleaning before. In fact, you seem to find pleasure in avoiding it."

"Do you know hard it is to make me even the tiniest bit nervous?" asked Herobrine "It is really hard. It is just that this realm, well I like it and all, but it also scares me a bit. The same thing that made my powers act all crazy is out there, waiting for enough of its chaos power to gather that it can attack this realm. Unfortunately for it, my cleaning and organizing habits kick in when it is making me nervous. This realm would be a lot weirder than it already is if I did not take care of it."

"Wait, you know why your powers were acting weird?" I asked. I had figured out pretty much what had happened then, but I had not told anyone else.

"I figured it out" said Herobrine "I am not stupid Shadow. After what you told me about Notch and the way you acted around me after I told you guys about this realm. You acted like you were afraid I would suddenly jump and attack you."

"I am sorry I did not tell you before" I said "I thought it would be better if you did not know that I secretly did not trust you completely."

"It is fine" said Herobrine, sitting down on top of a chest and holding his head in his hands. "I would probably do the same thing if I was in your position. Sometimes I do not even know if I can trust myself."

"What do you mean" I asked.

"The chaos force is growing in power" said Herobrine "I hear it whispering from the edges of my realm, sending its corruptive words to break down what I have worked to build."

"So you can hear the chaos whispers" I said, worry rising in me once more.

"Sometimes" admitted Herobrine "They come and go with the strength of the chaos force. I figure that the stronger the force, the more power that it has to influence me."

"We will have to find a way to deal with your connection to them later." I said "They will become stronger now that the chaos lord has Notch under his influence. But for now, that can wait. I came here to show you stuff, and I am determined to do so before we are interrupted again." I pulled out a block that I had spent a long time working on. It was an obsidian slab with a red cloth draped over its top, hanging off of the edge in some places. It was held on by a diamond bracket at each corner. A gold trimmed book floated over the whole setup. When it was approached, the book opened and revealed the words of magic written inside.

"Whoa" said Herobrine, staring at it "It is cool. And it is shiny. What do you use it for?"

"It is an enchanting table" I said "You use it to improve tools and armor."

"What materials do you need to enchant things?" asked Herobrine, looking up from the enchantment table that he had been intently studying. "If it works with a spell, then a specific set of ingredients must be required."

"It works slightly different than the magic we usually use" I said "Instead of requiring a specific set of materials, it gives you an enchantment based on how much exp you put into it. You choose the amount you want to put in, then it gives you a random enchantment or set of enchantments based on the likely hood of getting any given enchantment at a specific number of levels."

"So what type of stuff can you enchant?" asked Herobrine, paying almost no attention to what I was saying "Can you enchant... um... this brick?" he asked, pulling a brick out of one of the chests scattered around the room. Without waiting for my response, he started leafing through the book, looking for an enchant that it would allow him to use.

After a while, he looked at me and asked "Why can't I use any of these?"

"You do not have any exp" I said "You have to gather it"

Herobrine stared unhappily at the floor "I bet I know where it comes from" he said "It comes from killing mobs doesn't it"

"Yes" I said hesitantly, not sure of how Herobrine would react to it "But do not worry" I said, seeing his unhappiness worsen at the news "You can also get it by doing other things, like mining some ores and fishing."

"That is good" said Herobrine "But Shadow, be serious, almost no one wants to put the time into fishing when you can just chase a cow that is driving you nuts."

"True" I said "But if someone really wants to, then the option is there."

"So how can I enchant me brick?" asked Herobrine "I do not want to go mining or fishing, and if I kill mobs, well lets just say it would not be pretty."

"Here use this" I said, tossing him a bottle of a green mist, which changed shades every so often. "Throw it at the ground, and you will collect some exp."

"What exactly is this?" asked Herobrine, looking at the bottle.

"It is a bottle of enchanting" I said "It stores levels of exp in a secure state. However, it can not be made by many, for the magic it uses is not often found in Minecraftia."

"Whatever, who cares" said Herobrine hurriedly "I just want to see this work" He threw the bottle at the ground, and he was engulfed by a small cloud of exp orbs that came flying out of the bottle. "These tickle" said Herobrine as one by one, the orbs came into contact with his skin and disappeared "So where did they go?"

"They joined with the magic that is naturally inside of you" I said

"How will I know which enchant to select?" asked Herobrine

"You are certainly full of questions today aren't you" I said "Enchant options that you can use will glow slightly and have their level cost illuminated in green. To make your life easier though, you can use this to see how many levels you have at any given time." I handed him a thin green and silver bracelet with dividing lines evenly spaced around the band. A small number was shown on one side of it as well. When I handed it to Herobrine, the number changed and the number of sections that were colored green shifted.

"The number shows how many total levels you have collected so far" I explained "The green bar shows how close you are to reaching the next level. Be aware that as you try to reach higher levels, it takes more and more exp to do so. The highest enchantment number that you can use is only level thirty anyway, so when you get that high, you should enchant."

"Cool" said Herobrine, running his fingers along the exp bracelet "Now I think that I have got this. I am going to try enchanting and get back to you on how I do."

After quite a while, most of which I spent looking through Herobrine's random stuff, Herobrine walked over to where I had seated myself, and sat himself down next to me.

"The enchanting did not work" he said sadly "T wanted to do it all by myself, but it did not work." After a pause, he asked me "Can you help me?"

"Of course" I said "What are you trying to enchant?" In response, he handed me a brick. "You really tried to enchant a brick" I said.

"Of course" he said, looking offended "I do not lie... much."

"I thought that you were kidding" I said "You can not enchant anything except for armor and most tools. I told you that earlier" This caused an idea to come to me. "You were not listening to me earlier were you?" I asked.

"Maybe" said Herobrine, refusing to meet my gaze.

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a bow that I had found in one of the chests. "Come on we can enchant this" I said, walking over to the enchanting table. When we reached it, I handed him the bow, saying "You wanted to enchant something, so here you go."

He took the bow hesitantly, and started leafing through the book atop the enchanting table. While he did this, I could hear him muttering "So I have three levels. Which enchantment should I choose? I will choose this one."

"So which enchantment did you get" I asked casually "If you look on the wooden part of the bow, it should say"

"Oh ok" said Herobrine, never lifting his gaze from the bow "Are all enchanted items this pretty?" he asked. Indeed, the enchanted bow was quite lovely. A bluish-purple shimmer covered it, and its enchantment was written on the bow in a sky blue script.

"Yep, they all look like that" I said

"Cool" said Herobrine "I bet this enchantment is awesome. It even sounds cool."

A sneaking suspicious of what the enchantment was came to me. "It is power one isn't it" I asked.

Herobrine looked completely shocked "How did you know?" he asked "I thought that enchantments were completely random."

"They are" I said "It is just that when you put a low-level enchantment on a bow, that is pretty much the only one that you get."

"Oh" said Herobrine "I guess that makes sense."

"Now that you have learned all about enchanting" I said "What do you want to do now?"

"How about we make a way that Crafters can make potions" said Herobrine "Not like the exp potions obviously, but ones that they can actually make"

"That sounds like an idea that could have exciting results" I said "To make potions, you need a brewing stand and some type of special plant"

"Will this work?" asked Herobrine, holding up a purple plant.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I call it netherwart" said Herobrine "I found it one day when I was organizing this place. I think that the chaos was strong enough in a few places that it caused some of the mushrooms that grow around here to mutate into this."

"In that case, we will have to use it carefully and always make sure that we have more growing" I said "We would not want to cause it to go extinct."

"That takes care of the plant then" said Herobrine "Can we make a creature who can give us the stuff for the brewing stand."

"Sure" I said "After all, it is only fair. I helped make the Valkyrie for the Aether and the Crafters for the Overworld, so now I have to help make a creature for this realm."

"We should make them look like this!" exclaimed Herobrine, handing me a small, singed piece of paper. On it was drawn a creature composed mostly of fire, with a yellow-orange crystalline body in the middle of the flame. In the picture, it was also shown shooting flaming projectiles similar to the ones that Ghasts created.

"This would make a pretty good creature" I admitted "The only thing that I would add would be six to eight rods floating around the central core. These would allow for greater stability while flying. It would also allow for a source of magic that could be used for brewing."

"I like this idea" said Herobrine "Lets do it"

First Herobrine used his magic to create a hovering flame in front of us. Then I used a spell on some lava to create the material required for the solid parts of the creature. We combined the two elements of the creature, and I used the words of magic to give it life. When we were finished, the creature floated before us.

"What are you called?" asked Herobrine.

"I am Zyrix the Blaze" it said.

"You are now lord of your people" said Herobrine "Shadow, how am I going to create more Blazes by the way. I can not do it by myself."

"I do not know" I admitted "I have not really thought about that"

"You could make a spawning cage" said the Blaze "They are used in the plane of fire where my spirit comes from."

"That sounds like a good idea" said Herobrine.

"You can try it with Zyrix later" I said "For now, we need to finish with what we were already doing, which is making brewing stands."

"Oh right" said Herobrine, turning to Zyrix, he asked "May we please have one or two of your Blaze rods?"

"Of course realm lord" said Zyrix "Am I correct in assuming that you are in charge of this realm?"

"You are" said Herobrine "I am the lord and prisoner of this realm"

"What do you mean by that?" asked Zyrix.

"I was banished here" said Herobrine "I will tell you more about it later"

Zyrix causes the Blaze rods that we needed to drop slowly to the floor. Herobrine picked them up and handed one to me. "So" he said "What do we do next?"

"Well, while you were talking to Zyrix, I made a crafting recipe for a brewing stand."  
"Ok lets make some" said Herobrine.

After we had assembled our brewing stands, I pulled out a few glass bottles that I had left over from making the exp potions.

"Now we need some water" I said.

Herobrine looked at me like I was crazy "This is the Nether you know" he said "You can not get water here."

"That is where you are wrong" I said, building a square of blocks with a two by two square empty in the center "Ice blocks can be placed here, then melted by putting a torch near the block."

"Oh" said Herobrine "I did not think of that"

I placed down the ice blocks that I had and set a torch next to them. When the ice had melted, I filled the glass bottles that I had with me with water, then set them on the brewing stand, putting a bit of netherwart into each bottle. "This will make an awkward potion" I said to Herobrine "You can then add different things to them in order to have them produce different effects. I must go now though. I have spent too long in this realm, and I fear for what I might find when I return. I leave the potion making to you to give you something to do until I return or you are free from this realm."

"Have a good journey" said Herobrine "I hope that when I see you once more, it shall be under the Overworld sky."

"I hope so too" I said "If you show me the way to your portal, I shall be on my way."

"Of course" said Herobrine "Right this way" I followed him as he led me down one of the passages of the nether fortress. At its end, a nether portal was inset into the wall. "I shall miss you" said Herobrine.

"Same here" I said as I stepped into the portal. The last thing that I saw before I was transported through the portal was Herobrine waving in a gesture of farewell.

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**A/N:I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. If so, consider leaving a review. Your feedback helps me to know what people like and dislike about my stories. You can also review or PM me with ideas for stories or one-shots, which I am always excited to receive. See you all next chapter. Bye :)**


	14. Secret Truths

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Guest AxleMC131 for reviewing this week. On with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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When I reached the end of my journey through the portal, it took me a moment to figure out where I was. Then I remembered that I had used Herobrine's portal and not the one that I had created, to return to this realm. I traveled down the passage that connected Herobrine's portal room to the rest of his castle.

At the end of the passage, I was momentarily stopped by the closed door of the secret passage. I ran my hands down the wall nest to the blockage, searching for a button or lever that would open the passageway.

At last, I touched a raised section on the wall, and I pushed on it. I heard a click as the button was pushed and the wall before me slid aside, revealing the corridor of Herobrine's castle.

I was walking through the long, winding, corridors of Herobrine's castle, when I heard light footsteps and the rustling of wings coming from behind me. I spun around. Behind me stood my brother Notch.

"I have heard that you were working with Herobrine" he said.

"So what?" I said "Is is now a crime to spend time with members of your family? If so, then I am breaking the same rule by being here with you."  
"It is seen as an unwise pastime to spend your time with those who have been banished" said Notch, ignoring my attempt at a joke "People will begin to suspect that you are turning traitor to the realm that you now call home"

"You are one to talk" I said quietly. Notch glared at me, and his eyes shifted from their usual crystal blue color to a grayish-red hue.

"Watch what you say" he hissed "I have more power than you could ever imagine. My lord has told me of the things that you know, and every day I must think harder in order to find a reason that I should keep you around. As of now, the only one that I have been able to find is that if I rid myself of your meddlesome ways, Steve will eventually find out, and I will lose my way to easy control over that realm."

I felt anger, hot and fiery rising within me. "You may speak badly of me" I said "And allow me to make what I will of it, but do not speak out against Steve. He has done nothing to deserve any hardship from you. He has helped you at the expense of his own happiness. Leave him out of this conflict, and keep the struggle between us."

"I could do that" said Notch "But my lord has plans you see, and they do not merely include your defeat, but rather include the full domination of all the realms this universe has yet produced. Therefore, I will agree to no such deal. A time will come when he must either bow to my lord or fall under his might. The same will come of you, though your opportunities for joining us grow less with every passing day."

"I shall keep that in mind" I said, turning away from Notch. "Now I must be on my way. I have been gone for many days, and have many things that I must attend to." I walked away from Notch, doing my best to keep a calm expression on my face. My inner thoughts were in turmoil though. I had not thought that the chaos lord had such a strong hold over Notch. Before, I had thought that I would be able to reason with him, to show him that he was wrong to follow the chaos lord's way and that only darkness for all could come about from following that path. Now I saw the truth. The horrible, accursed truth that there was nothing I could do to save my brother from the fate that he had brought upon himself. He had passed the point of no return. What has really convinced me of this had been his eyes. Before all of this, they had always been so full of life. Even in the first days, when the chaos lord's power could be seen affecting his decisions, his eyes still held the spark of freedom. Now, his eyes held no life. They showed that Notch's will had been defeated, and the hope of freeing him lost. I also had not known that the only reason that Notch had not yet dealt with me was that he wanted to keep Steve as an unsuspecting observer to the growing conflict between me and Notch. I had known that there was some secret reason that Notch had not confronted me directly, but I had never guesses that a simple thing like Steve's loyalty to members of his family was what was keeping me from being quietly eliminated.

I was so deep in my thoughts, that I was startled when I came to the doors leading out of Herobrine's castle. The bright light of the Overworld sun dazzled my eyes, for they had become accustomed to the dimmer light of torches and lava while I was away. I decided to walk to my fortress, in order to prolong the task which I dreaded yet secretly wished for. This overland route led me past few towns, and so I hoped that I would not be found by Steve. This hope was in vain, for not long after passing a third Crafter settlement, Steve came running through the fields behind me, struggling to keep up with my rapid pace.

"Hey slow down" he said "Anyone would think that you were trying to avoid me, running at such a pace. And why would you ever try to avoid me?"

"Oh I do not know" I said "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the last time we talked, you accused me of using you and Notch to achieve my own dastardly plans."

"Oh are you still mad about that?" asked Steve "Sure I was mad, but I got over it and you will too. I guess that it must take longer for you to get over things like that."

"Sure" I said, not really paying attention to what Steve was saying "I am in a bit of a hurry, so if you excuse me, I will be on my way."

"I am not stopping you from going anywhere" said Steve "In fact, the more that I follow you, the faster that you try to go. I wonder why that is. Anyway, where are you heading so fast?"

"I am going to my fortress" I said, hoping that Steve would go away if I answered his questions.

"Cool" said Steve "Have you seen Notch? He promised that we would do something today, but first I have to find him so that I can figure out what we are going to do."

"I saw him at Herobrine's castle" I said "He was there when I got back from the Nether"

"Oh is that where you have been" said Steve "I thought you were at your base studying spells or something. That does explain why I have not seen you in a while."

"I suppose" I said "Now go off and find Notch"

"Got it" said Steve cheerily "Well it has been nice talking to you" With that, he raced off in the direction that we had been traveling from. I continued on my way to my fortress, which could be seen just on the edge of the horizon.

When at last I reached my fortress, I hesitated just outside the door. If I entered, there would be no turning back. If I left and never returned, there would be little chance of anyone finding out. However, I would also have been following the rules set into place by Notch in his fallen state. Without hesitation, I entered into my fortress, knowing that I had just faced the point of no return, just as Notch had. I hoped that my choice would have a better result than Notch's. I walked along one of the corridors of my fortress, searching for a secret door I had thought that I would never use again.

After I found it, I opened it and a tunnel was revealed. At its end, a room could be seen. I entered the room, and looked at the four by four construction with no corners that sat in the center of the room.

"I never thought that i would have enough courage to come back here" I said to myself "Especially after what happened with Herobrine"

I looked at one of the blocks that made up the frame of the construction, and saw that the eye embedded into its top had closed. In fact, all the eyes had closed, causing the portal mist to dissolve into nothingness. The portal that I had never though that I would make. But the magic had tempted me, and now I had to face the consequences for using it. I pulled out a small sliver of obsidian and cut a small slice down my arm. I then poured water from a bottle that I had kept from my time with Herobrine onto the cut. I felt the water drawing my magic from me, painfully weakening me. I focused on the sight of the crystal clear water mixing with the purplish liquid that was my blood to distract myself from the pain. I then let the mixture drip down onto one of the closed eyes, knowing even as I did so that this would not keep it open long. I turned to the next eye, to wake it with the mixture, then saw that it had already opened.

Surprised, I stared at the few orange flakes that surrounded it. It seemed that the bits of blaze powder that I had picked up from my encounter with Zyrix were capable of keeping the eyes awake. Carefully, I collected the rest of the dust and sprinkled a bit of it onto each eye.

When they all were open, a sheet of darkness filled the empty space between them, dappled with sparkles that resembled the stars of the sky. The sight of the portal caused the dark power that dwelled within me to rise. I struggled to subdue it, to keep in control of myself. Every time I remade the portal, the darkness grew stronger. I knew that someday the others would find my secret and, like Herobrine, I would be cast out, cursed by my brother. But the greatest damage had already been done. My actions had changed me, and it would not be long before I had to shift my form to one that could contain my dark self. For unlike Herobrine, my curse was buried deep within me, and I tried every day to keep the ones I loved from finding out my secret. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the corridor that led to this room, and I knew that my days of hiding were over. The time had come to accept the consequences of my decision.

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**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. If you did, please consider leaving a review. Your feedback is always appreciated, and I read every review that I get. See you all next chapter. Bye :)**


	15. The Truth Revealed

**Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank InfinityGuardien for reviewing this week. On with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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I turned around and watched the entrance to the room, unsure as to who would be the one to discover my secret. I heard a voice call out "Hello, is anybody home?"

I put my head in my hands. Out of all of all the people that could find out, the first one had to be Steve. It would hurt him the most, I knew.

Finally, he reached the end of the corridor, and I saw that he was not alone. Notch followed behind him. This day just kept getting worse and worse. "So Shadow" said Notch "What is this place?"

"And what is this?" asked Steve, reaching down to touch the portal that filled most of the room.

"Do not touch that!" I exclaimed, grabbing Steve's wrist before he could put his fingers into the swirling, star-filled mist. Steve looked startled, and pulled his hand from my grip. He then took a few steps back towards th corridor, as if he was not sure that I was safe to be near.

"Why are you here Notch?" I asked in a tired voice.

"I wanted to return this to you" he said, pulling out my diamond sword. "I should thank you though. I have known about your secret for a while, but I did not know where you had hidden the gateway."

"You knew?" I asked "How? And why didn't you ever say anything about it?"

"Why would I have told you I knew?" asked Notch "You would have found a way to get out of it. As for how I knew, that is easy. The Valkyrie. You may have helped to create them, but they swear allegiance to me. You thought that you were being clever, getting information about me from creatures of my own realm, but your curiosity was your downfall. The Valkyrie told me what you were trying to do, and they also told me one other interesting thing about you. Apparently, you had been using forbidden magic to create a realm."

"What!" gasped Steve "Why would he do that?"

To Steve's obvious surprise, I was the one who answered his question "Because my curiosity got the better of me" I said "And now the time has come for me to pay the price for my actions. Give me my sword Notch."

"What are you going to do with it?" he taunted, holding it just out of my reach "Throw yourself on it and spare yourself the humiliation of this whole thing?"

"No" I said, grabbing the sword and sitting down on the frame of the portal. "You brought it to give me, and now you have done so. If you wish, we can forget this happened and move on."

"Why would I do that?" asked Notch "I do not want to deny myself the enjoyment of bringing you to your knees."

I turned to Steve "You can leave if you would like" I said "This will be hard for you to hear, but I would like you to know the truth."

Looking like he was already on the verge of tears, Steve said "I am staying. I will not abandon you to Notch like I did with Herobrine."

"What are you taking about?" asked Notch, staring at Steve as if to dare him to continue "Herobrine was a traitor. He broke my rules and suffered the consequences."

"Did he now." said Steve "Did your lord tell you to make that rule then?"

Both Notch and I looked stunned. How had Steve known about the one Notch called lord?

"Shadow tried to tell me what was going on with you" said Steve "But I refused to believe him. I have since learned that I was wrong."

"Why would you believe him and not me?" asked Notch.

"Because I saw you at Herobrine's castle" said Steve "Threatening Shadow, and saying you only kept him around to keep me happy. How could you betray your family like that?"

"You can not prove any of that" said Notch, desperately searching for ways to keep himself out of trouble.

" Yes I can" said Steve "Your eyes give it all away. Only the fallen have grayish red eyes"

"Thank you for your support Steve" I said quietly "I do not deserve it though. It is time for you to discover my secret." I gestured for them to seat themselves "I would recommend sitting, we are going to be here a while." I took my diamond sword and made a small cut on one of my fingers. Then I showed my brothers. "As you can see, I am different. My blood is purple. There are other differences within me as well. It is all because of the magic that I have used. One type of magic, end magic, has always been forbidden to use, but unlike void magic, which has an obvious reason not to use, I could find nothing wrong with using it. What I did not know was that the ones who had created the magic had made it as a trap originally, so that curious mages would fall under their power. The race that created it is long gone, but their influence sill remained. I used the magic hoping to find great power, and I did, but every power has a cost. The cost of this was a change in me. I became closer to what the ones who created the magic were. I have purple blood, water draws my power from me, and a dark power lives within me. The magic inside me drove me to build a realm, one like the realm where the kind had come from before."

"So you did build a realm!" exclaimed Notch "I knew it! No matter what else you say, you are being exiled just for that"

"Shush" said Steve "Let him finish"

I gave Steve a grateful glance before continuing "i kept this a secret from you to protect you. The dark can only influence those who are aware of its existence. But when Notch started acting strangely, something told me that my secret would not stay hidden for very much longer. The kind and the lords of chaos have always opposed each other. I now allow you to judge me as is your right."

"So what I have gotten from your story" said Notch "Is that this forbidden magic you used drove you to make a realm when you might not have otherwise wanted to. Because of that, I am going to give you the same offer I gave Herobrine. If you destroy this realm, we all can forget that it ever existed and move on with our lives. Do not answer me now" he said, seeing that I was about to respond "Seeing as I am feeling generous today, I will give you one day to make your decision. I shall return then to hear your choice." Notch turned and walked out of the room, leaving us standing there, unsure of what to do.

Steve broke the silence, saying "What are you going to do now?"

"Prepare for my exile" I said "There is no way that I would even consider destroying my realm, but even if I would consider it, agreeing to forget that it ever existed would be like saying Notch was right."

"But you are just going to let him exile you?" asked Steve "Why don't you try to stop him or something?"

"Oh don't worry" I said "I will not give up with out a fight. But with the lord of chaos to aid him, Notch may be able to beat me in a fight. I want to be ready just in case."

"Do you need any help?" asked Steve "I felt so bad after Herobrine was banished, I do not want to have to go through it again."

"I can use all the help that I can get" I said "But this will all work out in the end"

"How can you know that?" asked Steve.

"I am not sure" I said. In fact, I actually knew one of the possible outcomes of these events due to the magic that I had messed with. The gift of foresight can be seen as both a gift and a curse. Quite often a future is brought about for the simple reason that someone tried to avoid it as a result of a prophecy. This secret was one that I was going to try to protect at all costs. Who knew what Notch or the chaos lord would do if they discovered that I had access to that type of foresight.

"I sure hope that you are right" said Steve "I do not think that I could beat the chaos lord on my own, especially if he uses Notch to fight me."

"Remember Steve" I said "You are never truly alone. There is always someone, somewhere who will help you get through trouble."

"I will remember that" said Steve "Now what do you want me to help you with?"

"Lets go upstairs" I said "I have some crafting stuff I want to show you, and I still need to work on Herobrine's problem"

"Which would be what exactly" asked Steve suspiciously.

"Trying to give him temporary freedom from the Nether" I said "It would give him some time to enter this world every so often so that he does not go stir crazy."

"I suppose that is fair" said Steve "You are going to have to keep it a secret though, otherwise Notch will make it so that nothing can ever get out of there."

"I know" I said "I will show you how to make the portal so that you can teach the Crafters."

"Why would they need to know?" asked Steve.

"There is more than just fire and death in the Nether" I said "Some resources can only be found there. Potion making stuff for example."

"Oh, ok" said Steve.

"I have also been working on redstone and the components that go along with it, but I need your help to add the ore to the world. I also have to find a way to get the instructions to Herobrine that will allow him to make Nether quartz."  
"What does that look like?" asked Steve "Can I see some?"

"Sure" I said "But it is just fragments. You can not build anything with it."

Steve took a handful of the large fragments from me and said "We will see about that" After a few moments of twisting the fragments, they slotted together, and a flash of light showed that something had been crafted. A white block that looked similar to sandstone, but more clean and pure was revealed.

"Wow" I said "How did you do that?"

"I am just that awesome" said Steve "This will look fabulous in buildings. I guess that good things really can come from the Nether."

"Well Herobrine comes from the Nether now" I said "Does that make him a good thing?"

"He is a neutral thing" said Steve "Anything with free will is neutral until they prove allegiance to one side or another of a conflict."

"Follow me" I said to Steve, walking from the room "We better hurry if we want to get all these things done before Notch's deadline."

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**A/N: I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter. If so, consider leaving a review. I have also decided that you can leave questions for the characters in the reviews section or PM to me if you would like. I will see you all next chapter. Bye :)**


	16. Hurried Preparations

**Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Kitwarrior24 for reviewing this week. You can leave questions for the characters in your reviews, and the answers will be in the next chapter. On with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

* * *

When we reached my crafting area, Steve gazed at it and said "You really have a lot of stuff in progress don't you?" It was true. Half completed projects were everywhere. Bits of redstone flashed from light to darkness every so often, and papers covered in schematics littered one of the few tables with no projects on it.

"Well I get started on one thing, then I get distracted and forget about it" I said, rummaging through a pile of papers and booklets about various things "Here it is" I said, pulling out a small book. Quickly, I began writing and drawing diagrams.

"What are you doing" asked Steve.

"I am writing instructions on how to use and make enchanting tables, brewing stands, and nether portals." I said "There is not enough time for me to show you all of it. If you can not figure something out, you can talk to Herobrine and he will probably know why whatever you are doing is not working." I finished writing and handed the book to Steve. He took it hesitantly.

"I do not want to learn all of this stuff from a book Shadow" said Steve "I want you to stay here forever and show me."

"I know that you do Steve" I said, giving him a hug, "But we can not always get what we want now can we. If we did, there would be no balance."

"I suppose" said Steve unhappily, flipping through the pages of the book uninterestedly. He glimpsed a picture of an enchanting table though, and he turned back to that page, studying the picture closely.

"Come on" I said, placing my hand onto the page to block his view. "You can read it later. We have things to do now."

"What are we doing first?" asked Steve.

"If you make redstone ore" I said, "I will work on Herobrine's problem. We can work on the uses of redstone after. Also, can you give this to Herobrine if you have the chance?" I said, handing him a small basket filled with various components and instructions written on flame resistant paper. "It is what he needs to spawn Nether quartz."

"Can do." said Steve, "Where are the redstone ore blocks that you made? I need at least one to do the spell."

"Over there" I said, pointing to a small pile of blocks with red patches on them. As Steve picked one up, it glowed a sparkly red hue.

"Cool" said Steve "I will be back quick as I can after I do this."

"great" I said "I will do my best to be done when you get back."

After Steve had left, I went to my library to see if I could come up with any loopholes in the way that Notch had banished Herobrine. In theory, I could just take down Notch's spell, but that would alert Notch, which would probably lead to both Herobrine and myself being banished to the void, where the chaos would have no end.

As I was looking at where I had set up my enchanting table so that it could draw spell energy from the greatest number of books, the magic symbol particles floating through the air made me think of a way that I might be able to use to get Herobrine's partial freedom. The way that bookcases improved the enchanting table was that they sent magic essence across the spirit plane to the table. This caused a magic symbol to float through the air in the visible dimension. I had made it so that they traveled in the spirit plane because it was hard for others to capture magic there or use it to find the user of the spell. Spirits of this realm were also extremely hard to use magic on. So if Herobrine's spirit traveled to this world through the spirit plane, the banishment would not effect him. Hurriedly, I began to search for a spell that would allow Herobrine to enter the spirit plane, hoping that it would not be too difficult, for I would not be around to help him with it. Even if I did not get banished myself, Notch would be suspicious if I started helping Herobrine with a mysterious plan.

I found a spell, and sighed in relief as I saw only a few simple ingredients required for the spell. It seemed like entering the spirit plane was more about focusing your and really wanting it than the spell components. I was sure that the spell would work well for Herobrine, because he was good at focusing his will, as long as he was going to get some type of reward or benefit for what he was doing.

Quickly, I copied down the spell and gathered the few ingredients needed for it. I wrapped the small pile in paper and set it in the basket with all the other stuff for Herobrine, which Steve had left behind on a worktable when he left to complete his task.

Steve returned not long after I had finished writing up the spell for Herobrine. He was dripping wet and had an annoyed look on his face. "it is raining outside if you could not guess." said Steve "I think that Notch is trying to limit what you can do by keeping you inside. He knows that the rain will limit your magic."

"Now who is paranoid?" I asked "Water only affects my magic if it touches me, and I know plenty of warding spells that will keep water off of me. You are right about one thing though. Notch is definitely doing this on purpose, if only to show that he is still paying attention."

"I guess that I need to chill out don't I" said Steve, laughing a bit at himself.

"A bit" I said, concealing a grin with some difficulty.

"Now lets get to work on these redstone devices." said Steve "First thing though, how exactly does it work?"

"Well" I said "When you break redstone ore, it drops redstone dust, which attracts to other redstone particles and forms small piles. These piles, when placed on top of a block, will connect to another pile with lines of redstone dust,"

"But what use is it?" asked Steve, looking at me with pleading eyes, as if that would convince me to explain faster. "You would not make something as difficult as this if it did not have some amazing potential. You know as well as I do how hard any spell related to this ore is."  
"That is because it is complex" I said "Complex things take a lot of power to cast spells on. Now redstone in its ore state does not output a signal unless it is stepped on or hit."

"You could use it to detect invisible people" said Steve, grinning as he imagined what would happen. "You could put it on the ground and when they tried to be all sneaky, they step on it and suddenly this glowing sparkly stuff gives them away."

"I suppose you could use the ore for that" I said "However, the dust can be used to make things that are even better than that. You can make traps of many different types with it."

"That is awesome" said Steve "Can you show me some? Please?"

"Sorry Steve" I said "I have some mostly set up, but I have not had any time to make the crafting recipes for the last few items that I need."

"Do you have any noted or something like that I can look at?" asked Steve "I can make the recipes lickety-split if I know what you want it to do."

"Sure" I said "I have some notes you can use to do that while I finish setting up the rest of the redstone circuit. I will be down in the testing area bellow here. When you are done, take the minecart system down there and you can see the traps in action."

"We have minecarts?" asked Steve "That is fabulous. Now I can travel through my mine really quickly."

"I thought that you would like them" I said "The recipes are in the book that I gave you. Lets get going with our tasks now. The sooner that we finish, the sooner that we can get to the stuff that you really want to see."

"Cool" said Steve "I will hurry and be down as quick as I can." He ran off, then suddenly, he turned around and came running back. "I forgot your notes" he said, blushing.

"Here they are" I said, handing them to him.

"Thanks" he said, running off once more. I went down the minecart track to where I had almost finished setting up several redstone circuits. I glanced at the schematics that I had left out next to one of the circuits and put the few missing bits of redstone where they belonged. Then I sat down to wait for Steve.

It was not long before Steve appeared, carrying the basket of things for Herobrine along with him. "I finished the recipes" said Steve "Now I want to see how all of this stuff works"

"Sure" I said "Give me the components that you made, and I will put them where they go in each project. Then you can have all the fun you like testing them out."

"That would be great" said Steve, his eyes shining as he spoke. I took the parts that he held out, and placed them where they belonged throughout the various constructions in the room. I then put a sign in front of each project so that it was clear what it was.

"Have a good time" I said "I am going to work on moving some stuff"

"Ok" said Steve "I will see you later"

"I hope so" I said to myself, "I hope so"

"Did you say something?" asked Steve, looking at me anxiously.

"Nothing" I said. Sharing my fears with Steve would not do anyone any good.

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**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. I would appreciate feedback about my writing in the form of a review. I read all of the reviews that I get and consider them when I write. You can also leave questions for the characters or prompts for stories that you would like to see. I will see you all next chapter. Bye :)**


	17. Magic Troubles

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I hope that you guys enjoy this chapter. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

A few hours after I had left Steve in the room with all of my redstone constructions, I finished moving the last of the items that I had chosen to my realm. Traveling through the portal had increased the strength of the dark magic within me, and my control over it was slipping. If I did not use some of the power soon, I would be unable to control when I used the dark power. Still thinking about what to do with the power, I went to look for Steve.

I had not though that the redstone devices would keep his attention for so long, but apparently I had been mistaken. I found him asleep, draped over a complex device that I identified as a piston puzzle. I watched him for a moment, wondering how he managed to sleep so peacefully when such dangerous confrontations took place around him every day. I had not slept well in many days.

I stooped and picked up Steve, being careful not to hit his head on any of the blocks that supported redstone. I had come up with a way to safely use much of the energy that was building up within me, but first I needed to get Steve away from here.

I tripped over something that had been left on the floor and almost dropped Steve. Annoyed, I looked down to see what had tripped me. I saw what it was and bent down to pick it up. It was the basket of stuff for Herobrine. I repositioned Steve in my arms so that I could carry both him and the basket. Then I set off for the entrance of my castle, hoping that the Crafter village not far from it was still around.

Upon reaching the entrance, I was revealed to see the twinkling of torches not far off. It would not take me long to reach the village, which was fortunate, because I did not have much time left before Notch returned. I set off in the direction of the Crafter village, doing my best to hurry without tripping over anything.

When I reached the village, the guard asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was looking for the inn, and he gave me directions.

The inn was a simple wooden structure. When I walked in, I could sense the Crafters watching me, even though they were trying not to be noticed. I asked one of them "Who do I ask about renting a room?"

Glancing at the others at the table with him, as if to make sure that he was really the one who was going to have to answer, he said "You can ask the man at the bar. He runs this place"

"Thanks" I said, giving the group one last glance and wondering why they looked so frightened.

As I approached the bar, several of the Crafters looked at me, then got up hastily and went to what I could only presume were their rooms. A little unnerved by the way that everyone was acting, I stood at the bar and waited until the barkeeper had turned his attention to me. When he did so, he looked me over and said "We do not serve your kind here. Leave now"

"What do you mean?" I asked. This whole situation did not make sense.

"You are a dark alchemist" he said "You have the marks all over you. You could at least try to hid it if you are going to walk among us." He gestured to my arms and face.

Confused, I placed the basket that I was holding onto the bar and pulled out a small glass pane. I angled it so that I was able to see my face in it, and almost dropped Steve in surprise. A dark, blackish purple flame pattern ringed my eyes and snaked down my face onto my neck. The pattern continued on my arms, and traced its way to the tips of my fingers.

"Where did this come from" I asked in shock "What happened"

The barkeeper seemed to relax a bit at my shock. "I have no idea" said the man "My guess is that one of your friends enjoys practical jokes. I guess that I can make an exception this time since you do not seem to be an alchemist. Just tell your friends that type of prank is not funny in any way. There is such a thing as going too far. What did you need anyway?"

"I need to rent a room for the night" I said

"That may not be the best idea" The barkeeper said hesitantly "You may not be an alchemist, but the other residents do not know that. And the people around here are not known for asking questions before they kill those they suspect, if you know what I mean."

"Oh the room is not for me" I said "It is for my brother here. I am doing some stuff at my house, and he can not be there while I work on it."

"Oh" said the man, giving me a strange look "That should be fine. Put him in room A3."

"Ok" I said "How much will it cost? He only needs to stay for one day."

"That will be three gold bars" he said, consulting a chart at the back of the bar.

I handed him the gold and picked up my basket, and went down the hall, looking for room A3.

When I found it, I opened the door and examined the contents of the room. A single bed was positioned in the corner, and a small window looked out over a field of wheat. I set Steve down on the bed, amazed that he had not woken up on the way here. He must have really tired himself out playing with the redstone devices. I glanced out the window. The first faint rays of sunlight crept across the land, signaling the arrival of day. It also meant that my time was almost up before Notch returned. I pulled out a small piece of paper and wrote a note explaining to Steve where he was and how he had gotten there. I placed it on top of the basket of things for Herobrine, which was positioned atop a small table. I then took a small, silver chain out of my pocket and fastened it around Steve's neck. A small charm shaped like a torch dangled from it. The necklace was enchanted with a protection spell, so that Steve would be safe if Notch tried to go after him.

I whispered to Steve "I shall see you again soon. I promise. But until then, goodbye." I bent down and lightly kissed his forehead, then left the room. I did not look at anyone as I left the inn and then the village. My thoughts were focused on trying to find a way to release some of the dark magic within me. For I knew what had caused the flame marks to appear. The barkeeper had been closer to the truth than he had thought when he said I was a dark alchemist. The dark alchemists were a group who combined the kind's magic with void magic, which rarely produced good results. They often had flame shaped marks on them that were caused by buildup of the kind's magic. These marks were used to identify the alchemists, for the kind knew how to safely deal with the extra magic, so they never carried the marks.

I wondered how to get rid of the marks, then a voice seemed to say *If the magic buildup is gone, then the marks will soon fade. Proceed carefully though. This magic can be tricky to deal with*

I spun around in surprise, searching for the one who had spoken. Not seeing anyone, I hesitantly began my journey home once more, wondering if this was another side effect of the magic.

When I reached my fortress, the sun had risen quite high above the horizon, and I figured that I only had an hour or so until Notch returned. It was time to deal with my main problem now, and deal with the dark magic inside of me. I took out a black book with purple trim. It did not appear to be of much use, but I knew that it held many of the kind's secrets within. I flipped to a page titled _Large Scale Replication_ and read the spell there quietly to myself. I then prepared to cast the spell. This spell was designed to take something large, such as a building, and make a copy of it in another place. The place where it copies is random, unless you keep an image of exactly where you wanted it to be created in your head. I spoke the words of the spell and waited to see what would happen. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness came over me, and I knew that something was wrong. It felt like my magic was all being poured into the spell. The spell's magic grew, consuming me, ripping me from this realm. I managed to keep just just enough control to keep my body from dissolving, but I could not keep it up for long if the spell kept taking my energy.

"Well at least this means that Notch will not banish me after all" I said to myself just before I lost all control of my magic and surrendered to its destructive power.

**A/N: Oh no! Is this the end for Shadow? Find out in the next chapter of Shadow's Story. As always, please review and leave questions for the characters. See you all next chapter. Bye! :)**


	18. The Voice

**Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Kitwarrior24 for reviewing this week.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

* * *

Suddenly, I heard a voice coming from all around me. *Silly child* it said *I told you to be careful* It seemed to be more irritated than angry at me though, and after a moment, I felt the magic around me calm a bit, as if another who used the same type of magic had brought my spell under their control.

_ Do not be silly_ I told myself _There has not been anyone who has mastered the kind's magic in many centuries_.

*You may be right about that* the voice said *But stranger things have happened*

"Wait, you can hear my thoughts?" I asked.

*Of course* said the voice *Why wouldn't I be able to? I live within you, and see all but your most secret thoughts.*

"That is not even a little creepy" I said nervously "How long have you been here now?"

*A long while* the voice said casually.

"Why reveal yourself now?" I asked.

*I have no desire to be disintegrated* The voice said * and if I had not taken over your spell, that would have most certainly happened. As it is, I was barely able to save you. Why did you ever think that you could do that spell?*

"I do not know" I said, shrugging "It looked easy enough. It did not even need any special ingredients."

*Shadow, Shadow, Shadow.* sighed the voice *The fact that it did not have any ingredients meant that it was harder to cast, not easier. The ingredients help to channel the magic so that less experienced mages can use it.*

"Oops, my bad" I said, trying my best to hide my embarrassment and failing miserably.

*You need to be more careful* the voice scolded. *What was that?* it gasped as a wave of energy blasted through us. I felt the magic shudder, as if it had almost broken free from the control of my mysterious companion.

"What was that anyway?" I asked.

*Teleport spell I think* the voice said a little breathlessly *If they teleport anywhere near where we are, I am not sure if I can keep us together.*

"get rid of the magic then!" I shrieked "You must be able to do that!"

*It is not that simple* the voice said in exasperation *You can not just make it go away. You have to allow it to dissipate over time. That is why we have been sitting here doing nothing.*

Another, even larger wave of magic washed over us, this time with massive amounts of a magic that was foreign to me.

*I can not keep the magic under control* said the voice, its panic clearly showing.

The last thing that I heard before I passed out was someone saying "Your time is up and judgment comes. You may think you are ready, but you have no idea what you are now a part of."

When I awoke, my first thought was to wonder how I was alive. I looked around, wondering where I could possibly be. It seemed to be a flat gray plane with nothing else visible.

"Where am I" I asked "How did I get here?"

*You are inside of a dream* I heard a voice say.

I spun around, looking for the source of the voice. It seemed to be coming from a patch of purple mist that vaguely resembled a person.

*As for how you got here* it said *When I lost control of the magic, it tried to destroy you because you are not one of the kind. It did not help that whoever was teleporting was full of chaos magic and caused your magic to become even more unstable. I have had to put almost all of my energy into keeping you together, which is why I look like this now. You should wake up soon, and then we can figure out what made all of that chaos magic.*

As the misty figure finished speaking, I felt as if I was being forced through a layer of jelly. When the sensation ended, I opened my eyes, and squinted, trying to adjust to the higher light level. Once my eyes had adjusted, I struggled to my feet. Something felt different though. I walked over to a small pond and looked at myself in it. What I saw surprised me. I had black hair that ended just above my shoulders and had light skin. I wore black and purple robes. My eyes were a teal hue, almost exactly the same color as the eyes in my realm portal. On my back, there was a pair of wings with purple and black feathers, and not far below them, a thin tail covered with feathers as well. A pair of flexible antenna sprouted from my forehead. As I moved them, their motion reminded me of an enderman's arms.

*I am sorry* the voice said *I was able to save you, but your old form was no longer strong enough to contain your ender magic.*

"My what?" I asked.

*Your ender magic* the voice said *It is what the enderkind calls their magic*

"I thought that the kind's name had been forgotten" I said.

*Not by its members* the voice said *We will always remember its name*

"You are a member of the kind?" I asked in surprise "I thought that they were all destroyed"

*You think many things* the voice said *That does not mean that all of them are true.*

_This mysterious voice could not possibly be one of the kind_ I thought to myself _It is probably just something from a spell that Notch put on me to psych me out before he got here_

*If that is true, how did I save you from your magic?* asked the voice *And why would I have done so?*

I decided to change the subject to one that had interested me for quite some time now. "Speaking of names" I said "What is your name?"

*I shall not tell you* the voice said *Not until you decide to join the enderkind*

"I thought that I already was a member of the kind since I used their magic"

*You may use our magic* the voice said *but all who use our magic are given a choice. Join our kind and keep the magic, both good and bad aspects of it, or leave forever and forget what magic you once had.*

"I do not know" I said in despair "Which should I choose?" I still did not really believe that the voice was one of the kind, but the choice offered was eerily similar to one I had found in the book of the kind's magic.

*I can not tell you* said the voice *But do not dwell on this question now. Another, strong in the magic of the void approaches.*

I saw a figure approaching in yellow-gold robes, and knew that Notch had returned to enact what he considered to be justice upon me. As he approached, I felt dizzy, as if I was about to dissolve.

*It is his magic* the voice said *Void magic can be extremely dangerous, even when it is not in use.*

"He had gotten stronger" I said "I could sense void magic in him before, but never this much."

*I would not be sure that his power had increased* the voice warned *Many of those who use this magic can control how much energy, and of what kind you sense from them*

I began walking towards where Notch had stopped, talking to the voice while I did so. "So how badly did my spell actuary go?" I asked.

*Pretty bad* the voice admitted *You did manage to make two other copies of your base, but they spawned underground, and only parts of them were successfully built. I did sense complete portal frames in each of them though.*

As I approached Notch, it felt like a part of me was being ripped apart.

*Um, Shadow* the voice said *I would not go near him right now. I do not think that your spell has finished yet, and void magic and ender magic do not usually mix well*

_I will be careful _I thought, mostly to reassure the voice, but also to calm myself. As soon as I thought this, I felt a string of magic dissolve due to the presence of so much chaos force.

_I really hope that was not important_ I thought.

*Oh we would never be that lucky* said the voice.

The world seemed to ripple for a moment, then both Notch and I started to be pulled towards what looked like a rip in the world.

"What is going on?" I heard Notch yell.

"I have no idea" I yelled back.

*You did not try to duplicate an active portal by any chance* the voice asked.

"No" I said, the lie obvious in my voice "But, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if I had tried to do that?"

*Well* the voice said *Since the portal was active, the frame would duplicate normally, but the keys would scatter between the original and its copies. It would also create a temporary rift to that dimension at the location where the spell had been cast.*

"Oh" I said, not sure what else I could possibly say.

*I guess that I shall see you on the other side* the voice said as I struggled to resist the pull of the portal. I heard a shriek, and turned around to see Notch trip and slide the rest of the way to the portal, to be transported to another world.

*Now we are don for* the voice said *The portal will pull twice as hard as before now that it only has to deal with one person.*

"Can't I teleport away from here or something?" I asked, desperate to come up with something that would keep me in this realm.

*I suppose* the voice said doubtfully *However, judging by your fabulous success here, I would guess that you can not teleport in the first place.*

"Unfortunately true" I sighed.

*I rest my case* said the voice, a trace of smugness present in its voice. Suddenly the voice said *Just go through the portal.*

"What?" I yelled "Why?"

*It is getting stronger* the voice said *And you are going to get pulled in eventually anyway. Better now than when you are worn out from resisting it. I am sure you remember who is waiting in the other realm now*

"Yeah, I do" I said "I really do not want to confront Notch though. Even after what he has done, he is still my brother." The portal's grip on me suddenly strengthened and pulled me much closer to the center. Trying to escape from its pull, I tripped over a chicken that was being pulled in by the portal.

*Not how I expected you to give in* said the voice *But I guess it works*

I slid along the ground until I reached the portal rift. Then I felt a cold tingling cover me and I immediately knew where the portal was taking us.

*Oh* said the voice, its surprise apparent *It feels like home. But how can that be? My realm was destroyed long ago*

Resolving to ask the voice what it meant later, I surrendered to the portal's power.

* * *

**A/N: I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter. I appreciate feedback in reviews, and I will use it to help improve my writing. You can leave questions for the characters in the review section as well. Have a nice day and I shall see you all next chapter. Bye! :D**


	19. Chaos Lords and Enderkind

**Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank DrLakiTaco for their review this week. I am sorry that this is late, but I had to film a scene from Romeo and Juliet on Sunday, and it took about five hours. On with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

The portal spawned me on a small island floating a little ways off from the main one. Tall pillars of obsidian were scattered across the landscape, and they did not seem to have any purpose.

*It can not be* the voice said *What realm is this?*

I was about to answer when a voice from behind me said "It is the End, as I am sure you know."

Without even turning around, I knew that the one who had spoken was Notch. He was seated on the edge of the platform with his legs dangling off of the edge.

*How does he know what I said?* asked the voice frantically.

"Oh you should not be surprised" said Notch "If you can do it to Shadow, then why can't I do it to you?"

"How do you know about my realm?" I asked "I never told you about it."

"Why do you call it your realm?" asked Notch "If you know of its past, then surely you know of its nature. You may be its creator this time, but it has existed before in a different form."

"What are you talking about?" I asked "You speak of past realms when you talk about my realm, yet it has been around for only a short time."

"You mean that he has not told you?" asked Notch incredulously.

"Who?" I asked "And told me about what?"

"That voice in your head" said Notch "Do not bother denying it, and no it does not mean that you are crazy. Anyway, I figured that since you have taken the form of one of the Enderkind, you have been told of them and their history."

"How do you know all of this Notch?" I asked "Tell me please. Has the Chaos lord told you these things?"

"You could say that" said Notch smirking "But the voice you hear is not the only one who has been keeping things from you."

*You do realize that we are all trapped here* the voice said quietly *Your spell destroyed the portal, so there is no way back*

_What!_ I thought _why didn't you tell me that before?_

*I though that you knew* the voice said. Hesitantly, it said *There is one way that someone could be sent back to the Overworld, but it would only be one person, and unfortunately, it can only be cast on another person.*

_What do I need for it?_ I thought to the voice. _I may not approve of what Notch has been doing lately, but he is still my brother and does not deserve to stay here._

*You must make your choice and join the kind* said the voice *Then I will be able to guide you through it*

_Why should I trust you?_ I thought to it _You have kept countless things from me. Why should I trust you? You have kept more from me than Notch has._

*Do you have any other choice?* the voice asked *But if it makes you feel any better, then I will explain what you wish to know after we finish this. But be warned, I did not tell you before because some secrets may only be heard by the Enderkind. So so you accept the magic? *

_Yes_ I thought to the voice after a moment spent contemplating the topic _I may not completely trust you, but it seems that you are telling the truth now._

*Very well* the voice said *Your choice is made, the path is set. For good or ill, the magic is yours to so with what you wish* As the voice finished saying this, I sensed a shift in the world, and suddenly, I could sense the presence of the many Endermen of the realm very strongly, where before their presence had been quite faint.

*The Endermen are a part of the kind* the voice said to me *Now that you belong to it, you can interact with them more directly.*

_Oh _I thought _Now how do I send Notch back to the Overworld?_

*Just reach out to him* the voice said *I will do the rest*

Hesitantly, I opened my mind and reached out to where I could sense Notch. After a few moments, during which nothing had happened, I asked the voice "How much longer is this going to take? I doubt that reaching out to a chaos user for a long period of time is a good idea."

*It should be done by now* the voice said in confusion *There is no reason that it should not work*

"You would think that the spell could not fail" said Notch "And you would be correct, if not for one tiny detail." I jumped a little and almost fell off of the island when I heard Notch speak. I had forgotten that he could listen to the conversations between me and the strange voice that spoke to me.

"What would that that be?" I asked Notch

"The fact that I am not Notch."

"What!" I shrieked "How? Then who are you?"

"I am so glad you asked" he said "I am Teloxen, lord of chaos."

*You lie!* screeched the voice *There is no such chaos lord*

"Oh isn't there" Teloxen said "Well I am sure that you have heard of my father Zeren."

The voice gasped *So the rumors were true! I had heard that Zeren had a child, but I did not believe it. I had hoped that the rumors were just that, rumors.*

"So now you believe my words" said Teloxen "How quickly your kind change what they think. Now I shall change my form to one that is more pleasing to me. This one is ok, but all of the yellow is starting to annoy me. Who knew that yellow could be obnoxious." A gray haze covered Teloxen from head to toe, and when it cleared, his appearance had changed. He had extremely pale skin, and short silver-gray hair. He wore gray robes, and he had gray feathered wings. He carried a tool that I could not identify for a moment.

"Is that a hoe?" I asked.

"No" said Teloxen, turning bright red in embarrassment "Why does everyone think that? It is a scythe, not a hoe."

"What is the difference?" I said "They are both farming tools, so who cares?"

"It is a pride thing" said Teloxen "Would you rather someone called your weapon a hoe, which can be taken the wrong way, or a scythe, which is associated with death and fear?"

"Enough with the chitchat" I said "Since you are not Notch, then where is he? I am sure that you know, because you are the one who has taken his place."

Teloxen chuckled "I suppose there is no problem with telling you where he is, since you are going to be stuck here for a long time, if not forever."

"So are you" I pointed out.

"You would think that" said Teloxen "But once again, you would be wrong. You forget that I am a Chaos lord, and since the majority of this realm is filled with void, it would be a simple matter for me to leave."

"Ok I see your point" I said "So continue, where have you hidden Notch?"

"I will tell this story as it happened as long as you stop interrupting me" said Teloxen "If you do not stop, then I shall go away, and you will never know what happened."

*Let him be gone now* the voice said *He is a Chaos lord, one of our sworn enemies. Even his presence in this realm is shameful*

_But I want to know what happened_ I thought to it .

*Fine* It said *But whatever happens, it is your fault. You can not blame it all on me this time.*

_Just watch me_ I thought.

To Teloxen I said "Feel free to start, I am listening"

"Ok" said Teloxen "So my father told me that he had seen some young gods when he was traveling, and one of them reminded him of a god that he had seen a long time before. So he sent me to find out more about what danger you could be to the Chaos lords. Turns out that he was right to send me. If I had not come here, I might never have found out that the members of the Enderkind were strong enough to show themselves once more."

"Focus" I said "I do not have much patience for you or your people, so get to the point of your little story, and do it quickly."

"You do not have patience for me?" asked Teloxen "That is a laugh. DO you know how hard it is to be civil around someone when you know that at any time, they could become your greatest enemy?"

"Yes I do." I said.

Teloxen gave me a long look before saying "I suppose that you do. It seems that you and I are not as different as each of us would wish the other to believe. I propose that we arrange a truce, under which, you could go about your business, as long as it did not interfere with any of my plans. So what do you say to that?"

"Are you crazy?" I demanded "You have taken the place of one of my brothers, and locked another in his own realm. Why would I ever ally myself with the likes of you?"

"Well if you look at it like that" said Teloxen "Then I suppose that you are right. I shall be off, for if we are foes, a fight will come if I stay here much longer."

"But you did not tell me where Notch is" I said.

"I know" said Teloxen "And that is surely a good thing, for it is rarely wise to give your enemies information, unless of course, it is false information, or it will lead them into a trap."

"Fine" I said angrily "Do not tell me. I shall find out on my own and bring an end to your reign in the Overworld."

"Yeah, you do that" said Teloxen skeptically. He then stepped off of the platform, extending his wings as he fell through the void, and gliding into the distance.

*Well that was interesting* said the voice *For a while, I was not sure that you were going to deny his request*

"Gee, thanks for trusting me so much" I said sarcastically "Now, lets get down to business. You said that you would tell me what I wanted to know about the Enderkind, so lets start now."

*Very well* the voice said *What do you wish to know?*

"First" I said "What is your name. I can not go on calling you _the voice_ forever."

*Technically you could*the voice said *But I can see how that would become bothersome after a while. My name is Illusion.*

"Ok Illusion" I said "My next question. Why are our people gone, and our magic outlawed?"

*Ah* said Illusion *In order for you to understand that, you need to know more about my past. I was the leader of the Enderkind, when Zeren, the leader of the Chaos lords, led an attack on our realm. We had been weakened by previous attacks by their people, and had not completely recovered. As a result of this, their magic corrupted our shielding spells, and they quickly gained access to our realm. They killed many of our dragon friends, and banished the rest, along with all of the Enderlords, including myself to the deepest part of the void. It was a long time before I saved enough power to escape, but I could only leave the void as a spirit, who could do nothing to change how the world works without a body to do so. So I traveled for a long time until I found someone who was exploring our magic, and that person was you. That is how I ended up being here today. Anyway, after the Chaos lords banished us, they made us all watch as they destroyed our realm. That is why I was so surprised when I saw this realm, for it looks similar to the one where I lived previously. The Chaos lords then spread rumors that Ender magic caused people to do things like steal children, and as you ca guess, people's paranoia did the rest. There are only a few of our kind left, and they are most likely in hiding.*

"Thank you for telling me this" I said "It must be hard for you to talk about it, but I appreciate your honesty. It explains why you were so hesitant to tell me some things, and why you were so afraid that I would ally myself with Teloxen."

*It hurts a bit to remember those who are still trapped in the void* said Illusion *But it feels good to be able to tell someone about it. Now try to rest child. True sleep is rare here, but try to contact your brother Steve through dreams. With any luck you shall be able to warn him about Teloxen.*

"As if I have a record of having good luck" I mumbled as I lied down on a few blocks of wool that I had placed on the ground. I closed my eyes and drifted off in an uneasy sleep.

**A/N: I hope that you enjoyed this chapter. We are getting very close to the end of the story now. If all goes as planned, the last chapter and the epilogue will be out next weekend. As always, please review, your feedback is appreciated. I shall see you all next week. Bye :D**


	20. Steve's Side of the Story

**A/N:Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank DrLakiTaco for reviewing this week. This chapter is the longest one that I have ever written, and I hope that you enjoy it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

* * *

**Steve POV**

When I awoke from my slumber, I had no idea where I was. I looked around the room, searching for any clues that would tell me where I was. The last thing that I remembered doing before drifting off to sleep was having a fabulous time playing with all of the redstone devices that Shadow had made. I finally noticed a small piece of paper resting atop a basket, and grabbed it, hoping that it would explain where I was.

I was not disappointed when I read the contents of the note. It said "Steve, you probably have no idea where you are right now, and that is completely understandable. I needed you out of the castle so that I could do a certain spell, so I took you to the village near my castle. I also gave you a necklace that will protect you from Notch if he decides to go after you. I hope that I shall see you soon. -Shadow"

It worried me that he had said that he hoped that he would see me soon. Shadow must have really thought that he did not have any chance of getting out of being banished by Notch. That saddened me, for with Shadow's departure from this realm, I would be alone, because it seemed that Notch could no longer be trusted, and Herobrine had been banished as well.

As I was deep in my thoughts, I heard a loud crashing sound, and the door came flying open. Surprised, I jumped backwards, hoping that I was out of the way of whatever had shoved open the door. The open door revealed two men standing there with iron swords, and they did not look happy.

"Why are you here?" I asked, my fear and confusion showing in my voice "I have done nothing to hurt you."

"And it is going to stay that way" snarled the first man, who had dark colored scars on his sword arm and part of his face.

"Yeah" sneered the other man, who had long red hair that stuck up in spikes all over his head. "You are going to pay for what happened to our family."

"What are you talking about?" I asked in complete confusion.

"The man who brought you here" said dark scar "He was a dark alchemist. Some of his order killed our family and left me these scars."

"So we are here to seek our revenge" said spike hair "We thought that he was staying here, but you will do nicely instead. I am sure that you are of some value to him, so maybe will just take you to use as bait."

"I am not quite sure what you are talking about" I said "But I do not want to fight you. Leave now, and we can forget that this happened."

"There is no chance of that." said dark scar. "The only way that you are leaving here alive is if you are our prisoner."

"There is no chance of that" I said, pulling out a half broken iron sword and cursing myself for not asking Shadow for a new one. This fight would not be pretty if my sword broke while I was fighting these guys.

Dark scar advanced towards me with his sword raised. I jumped out of the way at the last second as he swung his sword down hard, aiming for my chest.

"Careful" said spike hair "We want him alive right?"

"I do not really care" said dark scar "Prisoners can get annoying. Lets just kill him now, and then we can go and look for his friend."

Dark scar took another step towards me, forcing me to shove myself into the tight corner next to the bed in order to avoid his next sword sweep. Frantically,my eyes darted about, searching for any way out of this situation. Just as I was about to give up any hope of escape, I noticed that a thin crack extending across the window to my right. If I hit it right, the thin glass pane should shatter, and I would be able to get out that way. I only hoped that there was not too big of a drop to the ground from there. I ducked under another slash from dark scar, then blocked a blow from spike hair as I moved towards the window as fast as I could given the cramped conditions of the room. I whacked the glass with the hilt of my sword, sighing in relief as it splintered into fragments. I then quickly swung my sword behind me, barely blocking a slash by spike hair before it cut deep into my back. I then leapt from the window, hoping that they did not follow me as I retreated.

I prepared for the sharp jolt of hitting the ground, and so I was quite surprised when instead of hard ground, I felt myself land in a large pool of water. Quickly, I swam to the edge of the pool and pulled myself up out of the water, being careful not to loose my sword. I had been lucky to fall into water, but if the two who were after me realized that they could safely fall into water, then they would be after me in no time. I sprinted off in what I hoped was the right direction.

After a few moments of frantic running, I finally decided that I was far enough from the village to slow down a bit and actually figure out where I was. I pulled out a magic map that Shadow had helped me to make a while back. The little symbol that showed where I stood was positioned between the village and Shadow's castle. I let out a breath that I had not even been aware that I was holding in. I did not know what I would have done if I had gone the wrong way, for if I had done so, I would have had to cut back through the village in order to get to Shadow's castle in a timely manner. I continued traveling in the same direction, but at a much slower pace, checking the map occasionally to ensure that I was traveling on the right path.

After some more walking, I reached Shadow's castle. Or should I say, what was left of it. Whole pieces had disappeared, leaving no trace of their whereabouts, and the sections that remained were looking worse for wear.

"What happened here?" I gasped. _It must have been Notch._ I thought angrily. Then another, even more troubling thought crossed my mind. "But if Notch has already been here" I whispered "That means that.." I fell to my knees as I realized what it meant. "It means that Notch has already been here, and probably locked Shadow away."

"Its not fair!" I yelled to the sky, slamming my fists into the tall grass as tears streamed down my face, tracing channels of wetness before dropping to the ground.

As my fists hit the ground a second time, I heard a loud crack, and a huge crack appeared in the ground in front of me. The remnants of Shadow's castle slipped into it. The huge crack in the earth then closed, leaving no evidence that it had ever been there except for a few blocks of dirt that had lost their grass.

"Did I do that?" I asked myself. I got no farther in contemplating the matter when I felt light headed and collapsed onto the ground, feeling as if all my energy had left me at once. I felt the cold hand of unconsciousness creep over me, and then I remembered no more.

When I awoke, I could tell, that once again, I was not in the same place that I had fallen asleep in. You would think that after being relocated so many times while I was sleeping I would have gotten used to it, but I was always extremely confused when I woke up in a place different from where I had fallen asleep.

There seemed to be no landmarks visible from where I was, and everything around me was a nondescript, gray color. Even the mist that hung in the air was a gray hue, slightly lighter than the ground.

Suddenly, I saw a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned to see a shape silhouetted in the mist. Having no idea where else to go, and being stuck here until I awoke, I set off towards the figure, pondering what had happened at the castle while I did so. I had never been able to do such strong magic before. Actually, I was lucky if I was able to do even the most basic magic. The only type of magic that I had ever been good at was crafting magic, and I was pretty good at it.

When I reached the figure, I was in for a shock. I had thought that it would be someone conjured up by my imagination to keep me busy while my body recovered its strength. Instead, it was a human figure, with large purple and black feathered wings, a thin tail, and tentacle like antenna. Even in my most wild fantasies, I had never seen a being like it.

"Oh good, you are here" said the figure "I did not know if I would be able to contact you in time, but it seems that I have finally gotten some luck."

Unsure of what the figure was talking about, I decided to go with a safe question. "Who are you?" I asked.

The figure blinked in surprise before answering "Oh, I forgot that you have not seen my new form yet. It is me, Shadow"

I stood in shock for a moment before running to shadow and wrapping him in an enormous hug, saying "I thought that I would never see you again. After your note, and what happened to your castle, I was sure that Notch had banished you for good."

"What do you mean what happened to my castle?" asked Shadow, his confusion apparent.

*You do realize that you cast a ridiculously powerful spell upon your castle and it failed.* said a voice that seemingly came out of nowhere *Why are you so surprised that it did not escape unharmed*

"Yeah, I suppose you are right" said Shadow in a resigned tone "So I guess that once again"

*This is all your fault* the voice finished *Is that how things usually work for you?*

"Pretty much" said Shadow "Even if I was not involved, it somehow always ends up being my fault."

"Uh, Shadow" I said "Do not take this the wrong way, but who are you talking to?"

"You can hear him?" asked Shadow in surprise.

*Of course he can hear me you silly child* the voice said to Shadow.

"When will you stop calling me that?" asked Shadow, his tone of voice showing his annoyance.

*Would you rather that I call you a derpy noob?* asked the voice dryly *Anyway, your friend here can hear me because this is the dream plane, and the rules about spirits are different here. And if I do this, then you can see me too* Suddenly, a stream of purple mist appeared and resolved into a shape that resembled a shape similar to Shadow's.

"So what happened at my castle?" asked Shadow.

"Well" I said "When I got there, large sections of it were missing, and I thought that Notch had banished you, so I got really upset, and when I whacked my hands on the ground, a huge crack opened up and what was left of your castle fell down into it."

*You must have very strong magic* said the voice *By the way, my name is Illusion. And if I am correct, you are Shadow's brother Steve*

"Yep, thats right" I said "Anyway, why am I here in the first place? I do not usually come here when I am asleep."

"It is because I needed to tell you something" said Shadow "You know how Notch has been acting weird lately?" asked Shadow.

"Yeah" I said, unsure of what this was leading to.

"Well, it turns out that it is not actually Notch who has been doing those things."

"What!" I exclaimed "Then who has it been?"

"Apparently a Chaos lord named Teloxen influenced Notch, then took his place after a while. I am not sure exactly how it happened, but I am sure that we will figure it out eventually."

"I hope so" I said quietly "Then maybe our family will calm down a bit."

"I had hoped to see you for another reason as well" said Shadow, his expression growing troubled. "I have had a strange vision lately, and a prophecy was given to me in it. Illusion thought it best that I give a copy to at least one other person, since I am trapped here with little chance of getting out, and the prophecy may be needed before then." He handed me two pieces of paper, rolled up and tied with a bit of string. "There is one here for you, and one for Herobrine. As hard as I try, I can not contact him, so you must take it to him for me. You must understand though, you are not to read the prophecy until it is apparent that it is needed. Do you understand?"

"Yes" I said "But why don't"

Shadow cut off the rest of my question, saying "Fate changes when many know of what is to come. If someone were to read it before the proper time, it could change what is to come. Mostly though, when one tries to prevent a prophecy, that attempt leads to it being fulfilled."

"Ok" I said, not quite sure what Shadow was trying to tell me with his words "I will take one of these to Herobrine when I next see him."

"Warn him about Notch too." said Shadow anxiously "We do not want him to be unprepared."

"Can do" I said. Suddenly, the world around me began to ripple. "What is going on?" I gasped.

"Do not be afraid" said Shadow "You are just waking up. Until we meet again, I wish you fair fortune."

"I will miss you Shadow" I said, struggling to keep the tears from my eyes.

"I shall too" said Shadow "But when you think of me, think not of the sadness of leaving, but rather think of the joy that being reunited once more shall bring."

I woke up where I had fallen to the ground, where the mysterious magic had taken my energy for its own. I was relieved and a bit surprised to discover that I had not been moved to some other place while I was asleep, which seemed to happen regularly.

_I must go tell Herobrine of what I have learned_ I thought _I also have many things to give him, and I would not want to forget to do so._

Once again, I pulled out my map, and looked to see if I could spot any of the telltale patches of color that marked where active portals were located. The only one that I could see close to where I was now was the one located in Herobrine's castle, where I had waited for Shadow to return from the Nether not long ago, when my view of the world had had not been ripped to shreds by betrayal and lies.

I set of for Herobrine's castle, wondering if even this small job, which seemed so good at heart, would later lead to a great evil. _Do not be silly_ I thought as I headed off for Herobrine's castle _Things are not that bad_.

When I reached Herobrine's castle, I went down to the portal room quickly, hoping that I would not lose my nerve before venturing into the portal. The one time that I had actually gone to the Nether, the place had scared me, and now bad memories of banishment were associated with the place.

I stared at the portal that stood before me, and jumped into it before any doubtful thoughts could reach me. _Besides _I thought _The faster that I get this done, the faster I can stop worrying about it_.

The world seemed to spin, and I was transferred into the Nether.

The Nether was just like I had remembered it, hot, dim, and creepy. I spotted a tall, dark colored fortress not far away, and I guessed that it was Herobrine's new base of operation. I began my trek towards it, hoping that it was closer than it looked.

As it turns out, the fortress was not that far away, but I encountered another problem when I reached it. It was completely over an enormous lava lake with no pathway to the ground visible. I did not know how I was possibly going to get into the fort. I supposed that Herobrine would just fly into it, but I had tried flying and had never been able to do it. In desperation, I called out "Herobrine, are you there? I need to talk to you."

"Yeah" came a voice from the top of the tower closest to me "Who are you then?"

"It is me Herobrine" I said.

"Me who?" asked Herobrine.

"Herobrine, it is me, Steve" I said in annoyance.

"Oh" said Herobrine "What are you doing down there? In fact, what are you doing here in the first place?"

"I came to give you some stuff from Shadow" I said "He got banished, and and could not come here to bring it to you himself."

"That stinks for him I guess" said Herobrine "I will come down and get the stuff. Are you in a hurry?"

"A bit" I said "I do not really like staying in this realm for too long, it creeps me out."

"Hang on then" said Herobrine "I will be right down."

Herobrine flew down from the tower where he had been positioned, and landed on the netherrack in front of me. "So" he said "What stuff do you have for me?"

"Well" I said "Shadow made a recipe for ore that he thought you would like to have in your realm, so he sent instructions on how to spawn it. He also gave me some other stuff in this basket that he did not tell me about, because I was asleep. He also gave me this" I said, pulling out a small paper wrapped with string.

"Ooh" said Herobrine sarcastically "It is a piece of paper. Oh my goodness, it is so amazing"

"Is that really necessary?" I asked, glaring at him.

"Absolutely" said Herobrine, grinning "Annoying people is my specialty. In all seriousness though, what is on that piece of paper?"

"Before I tell you" I said, hesitating, unsure if Herobrine would believe what I was going to tell him, or if he would think that I was just playing an elaborate prank, trying to get back at him for all of the pranks that he had played on me before. "You have to promise that you will at least try and listen to the whole story before you laugh at me and call me a liar."

"Sure" said Herobrine "I have been meaning to see how long I could me serious for anyway."

"Is that something that you need to know?" I asked in confusion.

"It was a joke" said Herobrine, sighing "You never get any of my jokes, do you?"

"Not very often?" I admitted "But it try because it makes you happy."

"Oh that is so sweet" said Herobrine in a fake girly voice.

"In all seriousness though" I said "I have to tell you what Shadow told me. I had a dream where I was in the dream plane, and Shadow was there. He told me that Notch had taken him to the End, which is Shadow's realm. He then said that Notch is not really Notch, but rather a Chaos lord named Teloxen. Shadow then gave me a copy of a prophecy that he had gotten from somewhere, I am not quite sure where. He said that I was to give you a copy, and that we were not to read it until the time is right."

"What a strange story" said Herobrine "How long did it take for you to come up with it."

"I am not making this up!" I exclaimed desperately "Please Herobrine, just believe me. I do not know how I can make you see that I am telling the truth."

"Chill Steve" said Herobrine, his voice wavering slightly, as if he was unsure of the best way to deal with my outburst. "I was just kidding. Of course I believe your story. It makes too much sense to just wave off as something that you dreamed up."

"Are you sure that you believe me?" I asked, hoping that Herobrine was being serious.

"Of course I am" said Herobrine "There is no need to keep asking me. I will keep it a secret until the time is right and all of that."

"Ok" I said "If you are sure, then I guess that I shall be on my way now."

"Yup" said Herobrine, rummaging through the basket that I had given him. "You do that. I am just going to stay here like I have to. Come and visit me some time later. You are the only one who would do it now."  
"Ok, got it" I said, turning back to travel back towards the portal.

"Bye" said Herobrine.

"Bye" I said.

I traveled back along the narrow path that wound around the edge of the huge lava lake and back to the portal. The trip back through the portal was just as bad as it had been before, but it was made more bearable because I knew that as soon as I returned to the Overworld, my life would return to at least a state that was similar to what it had been before. I stepped out of the portal, and sighed in relief that nothing had gone wrong during the transport. I had been assured that things like that did not happen, but whenever I used a portal, I was still worried that I was going to be sent to the wrong place or trapped between dimensions.

Suddenly, I heard a light footstep behind me. I spun around, and saw a figure step out from behind the portal. "Notch!" I shrieked "Er, Teloxen. What are you doing here?"

"So" said Teloxen "You know my name. Well, if you do, then I have no need of this form."

In a flash of light, his form changed to a man with gray robes and wings, who carried a scythe. "You know too much little one"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That is of no concern of you" said Teloxen "Now come here" he said, pointing to a spot on the floor a few feet in front of him. Hesitantly, I walked forward and stood where he was pointing. He stared into my eyes and when he spoke, I could here the magic of a spell in his words. "Now sleep" he said. I felt myself swaying, and the world went dark as I fell into the depths of sleep.

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**A/N:I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter. This is the last chapter other than the epilogue, which should be out tomorrow. A review is always appreciated, and I read every one that I get. Have a great day, and I shall see you all tomorrow. Bye. :D**


	21. Epilogue: Endings and Beginings

**A/N: Hey, Ender here. I would like to thank Xavkul (Guest) for reviewing. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Minecraft**

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**Teloxen's POV**

_How did he discover so much?_ I asked myself as I gazed down at Steve's sleeping form _It matters not. He must not know of what happened between me and Shadow, or of my true nature_.

I reached down and and picked up Steve, and called upon my magic to teleport me to the Aether. I then pressed on a specific tile in one of the mosaics. It opened up a passageway that descended deep into the ground beneath Notch's palace.

I carried Steve down the shallow steps that led down into the depths of the earth, then placed him on a table in the center of the first room that I came to. I then paused for a moment before walking to another room that differed from all of the others, as it had an iron door in contrast to the ones on all of the other rooms. I placed my hand on the door and muttered the unlocking spell. The door slid open to reveal t figure huddled in the corner.

"Up prisoner" I barked at the figure. It did not respond except to glance up slightly, as if looking for who had spoken. "Oh Notch" I said, my voice dripping with false pity "How terrible it must feel, to have once had all the power, and then to have it all taken away by the one who gave you the power in the first place." At the sound of my voice, Notch wrapped his arms tightly over his head, as if to ward off a blow.

"Relax" I said "I only wanted to tell you that another one of your brothers has been successfully banished from the realm of the Overworld. Your chances of getting out of here are growing less with every passing day."

When Notch did not respond, I turned and left the cell, making sure to re-lock the cell door behind me with a spell. I then turned to the matter at hand. Steve had discovered far too much to be allowed to roam free, but due to the fact that the Overworld was the realm that he had power over, this would not be an effective method of dealing with him. I had thought long and hard about how to deal with him, and when I had come up with a solution, it had seemed laughably obvious. One of the areas of Chaos magic that I excelled at was the manipulation of others, and that included changing what they remembered. In other words, I could change Steve's memories so that he would not remember what he had learned.

I looked into Steve's mind, and whispered a spell. Suddenly, his mind resolved into nicely divided sections. I selected the one that held Steve's memories, and began to look through them.

I was looking through his recent memories when I encountered one that surprised me. "What is this about I prophecy?" I murmured.

I temporarily returned to the physical world and looked through Steve's pockets for the scroll.

I finally found the small piece of paper after several moments of searching. I unwrapped it, and read the words printed on it. After a few moments, I grinned "So this is what you did not want me to find out Shadow" I said "The prophecy speaks of how to defeat me, so you wanted to keep it from me. Unfortunately, your little plan gave me the very thing that you sought to protect. Now it is time to do a little planing of my own."

I figured that if Steve had been to the Nether, then Herobrine also had the prophecy. In order to make it so that no one would believe that either Herobrine or Shadow were telling the truth when they spoke of the prophecy, I had to do something that I would not have considered if the stakes had been any lower.

Working quickly now, I returned to Steve's memories, adding many new ones and changing old ones. The originals remained, for memories are always stored in more than one place, but I locked them away, hoping that my spells would last long enough for me to come up with another strategy.

During my work, I had inserted memories that made Steve see Shadow and Herobrine, not as his brothers, but as demons who had tried to take over his family. I made him think that Notch had banished those two in order to protect him and the people of the Overworld and the Aether. I made him forget the name Teloxen, my name, so that he would not know my secret. And most of all, I made him forget the prophecy, so that no one from the Overworld would ever know of it and seek to use its words to defeat me. I then removed my shift spell from Steve, and his mind once more resembled a disordered jumble of incoming and outgoing information.

I teleported to the Overworld and placed him on his bed. Then I teleported back to the Aether and retired to my rooms. Exhausted from all of the magic that I had used, I leaned my scythe against the wall and flopped down on my bed, hoping for a good, long sleep.

**-Meanwhile, in the End-**

**Shadow's POV**

I could sense that something was amiss in the worlds, but I could not tell what it was. A deep sense of dread had come over me not long after Steve had left, and it had not diminished since. Rather, it seemed to have become stronger as time went on.

"Illusion, what so you think could be causing me to feel like this?" I asked.

*I do not know* said Illusion *But I feel it too. Chaos has found some way to gain the advantage for the time being.*

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" I demanded.

Illusion signed *I do not know what we can possibly do about it. We are trapped here, and know little of what goes on in the outside world, while our enemies live there and grow stronger. *

"I can fix one of those problems." I said. I went over to one of the Endermen, who were everywhere in the End, and said "Take some of your people to the Overworld and and find out what is going on there, then report back to me."

The Enderman nodded slightly, then teleported over to a large group of Endermen and began instructing them on what to do.

*Good plan* said Illusion *They can bring you information from the Overworld.*

As we were talking, a sphere of purple light descended from the sky and landed not far from where I was standing.

"What is that?" I asked.

*I do not know* said Illusion *Be cautious though, we do not want to be reckless*

I went over to where the sphere had landed, and cautiously placed my hand onto the surface. After a moment where nothing happened, I removed my hand and shrugged "I guess that it does not do anything after all."

*No* said Illusion *Look at it now*

I looked at the sphere and noticed that the section I had placed my hand on glowed a shade of purple that was slightly lighter than the rest of the sphere.

*Oh* said Illusion, recognition and surprise evident in his tone. *I think that this is a Magitech safe capsule*

"A what?" I asked.

*Magitech is the practice of using technology and magic together* said Illusion *The kind had used it for many hundreds of years, and many of those who use science or magic alone hate our kind because of it. They believe that the two should never be combined, and to do so is treasonous.*

"Ok" I said "But that does not really answer my question. I wanted to know what a Magitech capsule is."

*Oops, my bad* said Illusion *A Magitech capsule is a special device that is used by the Enderkind to transfer things from one place to another. They use special sensors on the outside of the shell to detect the genetic makeup of the one who is touching it. It will only open for Enderkind, and they can even be set to only accept a certain individual's DNA. However, that can be a bad thing if the person that it is intended for has something happen to them, because then you can not open it at all.*

"Why isn't the capsule open then?" I asked "It read my DNA, so why didn't it let me in?"

*You also need a password to open it* said Illusion *Otherwise, our enemies could get in just by capturing one of our kind.*

"Do you know that password?" I asked,

*Um, not if they changed it, but it may be the default code. Try cupcake.*

"Cupcake?" I asked "What type of password is that?"

*What?* said Illusion *Is that such a bad password? I needed something random, and besides, cupcakes are good*

"Fair enough" I sighed "Where do I put in this password anyway?"

*If you twist the top section, a keyboard should appear. Then you can put in the password.*

I gently twisted the top of the capsule, and a panel slid aside to reveal a keypad.

*Now* said Illusion *Twist the top in the opposite direction to the way you did it before, and it should open if the code is correct.*

I twisted the top in the opposite direction, and the top of the capsule came undone. A sound of light breathing came from inside, and I reached inside to take hold of what was inside. As soon as my hand touched the cloth inside of the capsule, I felt a scaly claw wrap around one of my fingers, and when I drew my hand out in surprise, a small dragon was clinging to it.

*It is a baby ender dragon* gasped Illusion *I wonder who sent it here?*

"I do not know" I said, putting down the small dragon and drawing out the small, cloth wrapped bundle from within the capsule.

*It is a child* gasped Illusion *But who would have sent her?*

"I do not know" I said "But we have to take care of her."

*She is Enderkind* said Illusion *Perhaps she is the one mentioned in the prophecy*

I moved the blanket away from the sleeping child's face, and as I did so, a small scrap of paper fell from the blanket. I picked up the piece of paper and read the words on it.

It said "To whoever may find this, please care for my child. Our kind is hated by many and she is no longer safe here. I hope that she shall be safe, and that you shall raise her as if she were your own child. Her name is Ender"

*We must keep her safe* said Illusion *I feel that she may be more important than we could ever know*

"Agreed" I said as I picked up the small dragon hatchling and carried both of the young ones to my End lair.

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**A/N:This brings us to the end of Shadow's Story. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it. I would like to thank you all for reading this, and extra thanks to all of the people who reviewed, followed and favorited this story. The first chapter of the sequel, Ender's Journey, will be out in the next couple of weeks. I am also working on a sequel to Lady of the creepers. I hope that you all have a great day and I shall see you in my other stories. Bye :D**


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